


Brute heart of a brute like you

by elo_elo



Series: Detonography [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Earth, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Anal Sex, Angst, BDSM Scene, Bulimia, Caning, Dark, Developing Friendships, Dom Solas (Dragon Age), Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Romantic slow burn, Rope Bondage, Rough Oral Sex, Safe Sane and Consensual, Slow Burn, Spanking, This story has a happy ending but its gonna be a minute, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Will update smut tags as story progresses, bdsm contracts, dom!solas, ish, major character death is before events of story, professor solas, really fucking dark i am serious, they fuck pretty much right away lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2020-11-25 15:03:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 34
Words: 108,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elo_elo/pseuds/elo_elo
Summary: Reeling after the death of her best friend, Dasha Lavellan quits her graduate program and flees back to the city where they first met. But New York is a hornet's nest of old memories and complicated relationships and Dasha's own demons come roaring back to life. Will a chance encounter at a BDSM club give her the stability she needs to pick up the pieces of her life or will it drive her further into chaos?





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week into her return to the city, Dasha finds herself falling back into old habits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! It’s always a little nerve-wracking for me to write in a new fandom (especially one with as many talented writers as the Dragon Age fandom), but I hope you like what I have for you! This is a pretty cut and dry BDSM fic based in parts on every single smutty novel I’ve ever picked up but with my own twist lol.

It’s rained every single day since Dasha got off the plane from California. Funny how she could live here for nearly half her life and a few years in that dry Los Angeles air could wipe this oppressive darkness from her memory entirely, could make the cold wetness that has seeped into the concrete rankle her like it’s the very first time. New York welcomes her back. Maybe in the only way it knows how.

She crosses her arms over her chest, trying to make herself as narrow as possible as she heads down the crowded sidewalk. She’s unsteady in heels, out of practice, and as the rain beats down on her bare legs, she’s regretting her choice of dress. It’s too big now anyway, hanging just loose enough on her frame that she can pretend it’s a deliberate aesthetic choice, but every so often, Dasha has to reach into her raincoat to slide the straps back up her arms.

It’s a liminal season. A spring that never let go of winter fading softly away. Another thing she’d forgotten about while she hid in her eternal summer. According to Josie, the cherry blossom season is nearly over and now their delicate pink petals are crushed brown onto the concrete. Their sweetness cloying, fading sharply into the muck of New York’s signature scent. Trash and piss and the burnt end of pretzels from street vendors. Dasha pulls her raincoat closer around her. It’s chilly enough out that she can still see her breath but for the past week, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she’s drenched in her own sweat.

Zevran is waiting for her just where he said he would be. They use to come to this 7/11 all the time in college. The guy behind the counter never carded and all the drinks were mysteriously dollars cheaper than any other place in town. Didn’t matter that they tasted stale. They were just drinking them to chase the taste of cheap alcohol from their mouths anyway. Zev’s leaning against the brick wall, the ATM beside him casting a watery glow across his face. All his attention zeroed into his phone If he’s noticed the terrible weather, he doesn’t seem to care much about it. His flowing white shirt is unbuttoned enough to display the eerily smooth skin of his chest, exposing him to the chill in the air, his jeans cropped in the middle of his shins. He looks like he’s walked right off a summer beach and stumbled into Flatbush.

Dasha clears her throat and when he looks up, his smile is luminous. The single stem rose tattooed on one cheek crinkles. She remembers when she found out about the tattoo. She was in Prague for research. Always in Prague those days. Always moving. Smoking long thin cigarettes and drinking thick, dark coffee. Film screenings and exhibitions. Feeling so manically, untouchably high. Glued to her advisor’s side, preening when the light happened to fall on her. Zevran had sent her a blurry picture of the tattoo. It had hurt so badly that his fingers were still trembling when he took the picture. An impulse decision. An old boyfriend’s idea. Josie had freaked, called Dasha on skype that night fuming about how out of control Zevran always was, how no one but her seemed to be taking anything seriously. But Dasha always kind of liked it. She’d certainly seen worse tattoos and the way it curved around his cheekbone made him look mysterious. Dasha reaches for it now, brushing the backs of her fingers over it. 

The touch delights him. He pulls her into a tight hug. “Oh, Dashy baby. God, it’s been ages. I can’t remember the last time I saw you irl.” He can. Because it was a month ago. A month ago on a freezing day in Trenton, New Jersey. The ground so cold the undertaker had to rent a backhoe to dig the grave. It had sat like a dead beast as they all gathered, dressed in black. Dasha had stumbled over the hard, frozen ground on the way to the grave. She’d cried open-mouthed for days and days and days. 

But that’s why she’s here with him tonight. Because Zevran’s not going to talk about Sera, because he’d rather die than spend even a second of precious breath on something that isn’t easy and fun and meaningless. And after a solid week of living at Josie’s place, watching her sit shiva, Dasha’s desperate for the egregious display of nihilism that Zevran has managed to live his whole life with.

But maybe even Zevran’s carefully crafted exterior is slipping. They’ve been holding onto each other for too long now, the pretense of this being just a casual reunion fading quickly away. Dasha inhales the smell of him – American Spirits and the apple-skinned scent of his cologne – and pulls quickly away. If anything had broken his surface during that hug, he’s tucked it convincingly away, smiling at her with a wink. “_So_ excited to get fucked up with you.” Dasha brushes his thick, blonde hair from his face and grins back at him. “Wanna grab some shit to eat or nah?”

Dasha ruffles her own hair. Her bank account is nearly as empty as her stomach and, besides, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that the fluttery lightheadedness she’s feeling isn’t all that unpleasant. “Nah.” Zevran just shrugs.

The subway entrance looks cavernous in the dark, the fluorescent light from inside pulsing eerily from the base of the stairs. When Dasha closes her eyes, she can see her own body broken at the base of the steps. She shakes the thought from her mind, trying not to let it unnerve her. The station is quiet when they descend the last steps. The rain has managed to find its way into the station and the only sound Dasha can hear is the drip, drip, dripping from the concrete ceiling. And then the rush of the train.

Zev’s fully occupied with his phone now, the screen filling with notifications, messages moving up like ticker tape and disappearing. Dasha keeps her hands tucked between her thighs, trying to make herself as small as possible. The train is packed. Worse than she ever remembers it being. But everything's a little different now. Just enough to disorient her. L-pocalypse is still in full swing and this is the third transfer they’ve had to make on their way to SoHo. Dasha still remembers Josie complaining about the construction. Remembers her listing off all the line closures, griping about how long it was taking her to get to her job in Manhattan now. Dasha had only been half listening as she’d meandered down the sunny street passing thick palms and food stands smelling of roasting meat and sugar on her way to campus. It feels like an eternity ago now. But honestly, the constant movement of rushing through stations and switching trains hasn’t bothered Dasha. It’s helped to fend off the incredible feeling of déjà vu that descended on her the moment she stepped out onto the taxi stand at LaGuardia seven days ago, coughing at the fumes coming off the waiting cabs.

But they’re not moving now. A heavy stillness settles around them even as the crowded train chugs down the track. Dasha’s eyes drift closed. Sera’s face drifts through her mind. Like it always does now. Those jagged blonde bangs, the soft smattering of freckles across her nose, her bunny front teeth, always just the faintest smear of lipstick on them. It’s nice to see her, even like this, but when the train takes another hard turn, Sera’s face changes. Her lips blue around the edges and suddenly Dasha is cold all over, remembering how heavy Sera’s hand was in her own, the way the tips of her fingers were purple like bruises. Dasha sits bolt upright in her seat, chest heaving. Zevran looks at her from the corner of his eyes and tucks his phone into his pocket for the first time all night. He rummages around in the other one and by the time he pulls out a little plastic baggy, Dasha’s been able to settle herself back down. She glances around the car, worried someone noticed her. No one seems to have.

Zev flicks the baggy, the trains fluorescence casting strange, watery shapes on the plastic. “Let’s have a little fun.” He takes a pill out and offers it to her.

Dasha crinkles her nose. “What is it?”

“What? Don’t you trust me?” Zevran rolls the pills around between his fingers. It looks like a Flintstone vitamin. Chalky and pale blue, a smiley face stamped into its surface. Dasha rolls her neck, trying to ease some of the tension in her shoulders. She opens her mouth, raising a single defiant eyebrow at him.

Zevran’s face goes comically serious and he holds the pill out for her like it’s a Chantry wafer. “What do you say when you take the Maker’s grace?”

Dasha closes her waiting lips. “How should I know? “

Zevran grins. “Open up, buttercup.”

Dasha bites all her nails down before they even reach their stop. She counts each minute by the seconds. Her heart feels like it’s stuttering around in her chest and a strange pressure has started between her hips, twisting up into her sternum like a pair of invisible hands squeezing along her spine. “I don’t think it’s working.”

Zevran glances up from his phone. “Give it a minute.” He blinks quickly, running a hand roughly through his hair. “Give it a minute. It’ll be good,”

They’re waiting in the club’s long line when a sweet thrum starts to course through her, sailing along her veins. She wants to be touched, wants to touch. _Needs _to. She reaches out to run her thumb across Zevran’s collarbone. He laughs, his pupils eclipsing his irises.

He pulls her into the club, their fingers knit together, and as the music rolls over her, Dasha feels like she’s stepping out of an old skin. The flashback on the train, the muted panic she’d been keeping inside of herself for nearly a month, the terrible oppressive rain outside, it all slips away.

The club smells like sweat, like booze. The flashing lights keep her mostly in shadow, illuminating only parts of her. She watches those parts with great interests, every pore suddenly fascinating. She loses Zevran almost immediately and flits around the club. She should be worried, but she can’t conjure the feeling and when the music changes, the bass rolling deeper, she wants to be touched all over.

She lets a handsome boy with a gold chain necklace and comically slicked back hairdo it against the wall near the bathroom. The pulsing neon flashes shapes over his face before he falls again into darkness. Dasha prefers the darkness, easier to avoid his gaze that way. He slides his hands over the silk of her dress, fumbles for her tits. He pinches her nipples harder than she expects and the surprise of it ignites a deep, melancholy pleasure inside of her. And then the melancholy spreads. She feels his hands like a plant might. Numb and removed. Like he’s turning her off inch by inch. She slips away from him, humiliation blooming brightly inside of her. The pill is wearing off. She’s slipping into the dark, thick water of her comedown. She’s brittle. She’s drowning.

Dasha finds Zevran in the bathroom and relief floods her. It isn’t a single stall, but she jimmies the handle until it sticks, keeping everyone else out. “Oh good,” he says bending down to snort a line off the edge of the sink. Dasha grimaces. That can’t be sanitary. “I was just gonna start looking for you.” He snorts another line. “I’m heading out.”

Dasha startles. “What? Why are we heading out?”

“_I’m_ heading out.” Dasha blinks at him, not understanding. “It’s a long story.”

“What’s a long story?”

Zevran rolls his eyes. “Listen, I’ll tell you sometime when I’m not fucked up out of my mind, okay? I just got invited to a really exclusive spot, okay?” He taps his phone. “I don’t want to miss this. They rarely have open parties.”

“And they wouldn’t let me in?”

Zevran rakes his eyes down her body. “Oh, I’m sure they’d let you in, but it’s too intense for you.”

She wants to tell him that he has a lot of nerve to pretend he still knows her like that, but her thoughts are still hard to reach, skin still buzzing and her voice comes out meek. “Maybe I want intense.”

He pats her on the cheek. “Another time, okay?” He leans hard on the door handle until it springs open. Dasha watches the lines of his back reflect the neon as he goes.

When she wakes up she’s alone in her bed. She feels glued to it. Heavy like she has an entire other person inside of her. She’s still in her dress, one heel still on her foot. The other nowhere to be seen. Dust motes float lazily by. Dasha sits up and the room tilts hard to the right. She slams her eyes shut, only opening them again when she’s sure the vertigo has passed.

She’s got a couple bottles of pedialyte laying empty beside her mattress on the floor, but aside from them, the room is nearly empty. She’s still living out of her suitcase, throwing her dirty clothes on the floor. She didn’t bring much else besides her clothes.

Up until a week ago, the room was Josie’s home office but a few cords wound neatly in the corner are the only indication that it was ever a place where anything productive occurred. Dasha kneads at her temples, trying to piece her night together. She remembers that she should be livid with Zevran and tries to conjure up the feeling. She can’t because like every morning now her chest tightens and she remembers with that horrible certainty that she has not woken up from a terrible dream. That Sera is dead. That she’ll be dead forever. She lets that roll over her. Lets it hurt so badly that she has to curl in on herself, gasping for air. And then, just like every other morning, she lets the feeling retreat. It sits quietly in her gut, its sharp edges dulled by the daylight.

Dasha’s mouth is cotton dry and her stomach is begging for food, but her first impulse is to check her purse. She fishes through it, taking inventory. Amazingly, nothing seems to be missing and she frowns as she tries to remember how she got home from the club. She supposes it doesn’t really matter now. She really is too old to be pulling shit like this. Doesn’t even really like it anymore. She’d _never _do shit like this in California, but she's not that person anymore either. Doesn't know what she is.

Judging by the sun filtering through her thin curtains, it’s probably mid-afternoon but her phone is dead, the screen cracked in one corner, so that guess is as good as any. Dasha stands, stretching her body out, flinching when her joints pop and crack. The apartment is quiet. Just her. Josie’s probably been at work for hours.

Dasha pads quietly down the hall into the kitchen. It’s spotless as usual, the only indication that anyone’s ever been inside of it a single coffee ring beside the sink. Dasha swipes at it with her palm. She opens the fridge. It’s mostly empty. Just seltzer water, a case of soylent, and a nice bottle of wine that’s never been opened. But on the top shelf, she finds a neatly prepared yogurt parfait in a mason jar, the granola cleanly separated with a layer of blueberries. She pulls a sticky note from the top of the jar. Written in Josie’s beautiful, swirling script: _Let’s make today a great day!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Dasha tries to hold together the last remants of their group, Zevran makes her an offer.

It’s honestly too cold for them to be out here. The temperature’s done a nosedive in the last few days and Dasha can’t help but feel that she’s being cosmically punished. What other explanation could there be for needing a coat in mid-April? Maybe it’s just another thing she’s forgotten about living here.

The sun’s finally come out at least. The whole walk over it hid behind heavy, grey clouds and now at least the sky is clear and the air is warming up. But even though it’s starting to look a little like spring – blades of green grass poking their timid heads through the cracks in the sidewalk – there’s a distinctly wintry chill in the air.

This little outing had been Josie’s idea because of course it had. These things were always Josie’s idea. It had taken days of prodding and pestering over the group message – sending paragraph texts about how beautiful the cherry blossom festival always was, how much fun they’d have – before she finally resorted to just guilting them both so effectively that even Zevran showed his face.

Dasha’s fingers are numb from the cold now and she stuffs them into the pockets of her jeans. It’s not very effective in warming them. She’s got a windbreaker on. It’s the only coat she owns. All the others had gotten lost somewhere in her shuffle across the country. And maybe she thought she’d never come back here, that she’d never need another winter coat.

Dasha scuffs the toes on her sneakers on the cobblestone, trying to look both innocuous and unapproachable. She probably doesn’t succeed in either. She probably looks like a mess and feels like, at any moment, the sideways glances will start. She fully expects to be asked to leave. No one seems to be paying her much attention though, The one notable exception a salt and peppered man in a peacoat who gives her a quick, lecherous once over before rejoining his wife in line, toddler clutched in her arms.

It’s still weird to be out in public like this, in the middle of the day. Her cheeks feel tight all the time, eyes puffy, even though she hasn’t managed to cry much since the funeral. Standing here alone makes it worse. Zevran’s a few blocks down the street. He’d taken one look at the crowd of pram-pushing Midtown moms lining up at the gate and figured he’d avoid the dirty looks and smoke a few cigarettes down the street. Josie’s over by the will-call, having what looks to be the kind of conversation Dasha would rather avoid with the old, coiffed woman behind the counter. Josie stamps a heeled, leather boot on the cobblestone, digging around angrily in the pockets of her long cashmere coat. Yeah, not her battle.

Dasha wanders closer to the front gate, drawn by the smell of one of the food stands. The table’s full of delicate, pale pink sweets and meat skewers shimmering with fat. She immediately vetoes those – the closest bathroom is way inside the garden – but her stomach has started to audibly rumble. She spots a little row of metallic cans at the end of the table and picks one up to examine it. Cherry blossom jelly sake. _Hell. _She rummages for her wallet. When in Rome.

Josie is still fighting with the ticket lady when Zevran saunters over. He nods at the can. “Little early for that, don’t you think?”

Dasha rolls her eyes at him. “It’s the weekend.” Then she takes a closer looked at his red-rimmed eyes and scoffs. “And don’t preach. You look stoned out of your mind.”

He grins. “Needed to find some way to get through this afternoon.”

“If it’s so intolerable, why did you come?”

Dasha regrets it the moment it comes out of her mouth, because Zevran’s normally nonchalant façade cracks, just for a moment, his mouth pulled into a deep frown. But it’s brief and then the grin returns. He cocks his head. “So, how’s it going?”

“What?”

“You know.” He sticks two fingers into his mouth, eyes glittering dangerously.

Dasha swallows hard and elbows him, trying to keep her voice casual even though her heart has started pounding in her throat. Zevran doesn’t know exactly, probably just assumes. Or maybe he doesn’t at all. Maybe this is another of his off-color jokes about how she’s lost weight since Sera died. She’s trying to come up with a retort that will settle with mood, redirect his bloodhound sense for drama without coming off as too defensive, but can’t think of anything before Josie’s back, looking flustered but holding three tickets in her hand. “I cannot _believe _they just tried to make me pay for these tickets. Maker, my family have been donors at this garden for more than a hundred years.” She huffs. “I’m not trying to be stingy. Andraste knows I make donations every year, it’s just a matter of principle I think and-“

“This shit costs money?” Zevran scoffs. “Why the fuck would anybody spend money to walk around a dumb garden?”

Josie makes a face like she’s tasted something off, then distributes the tickets without another word. “Thank, Jo.” Dasha forces her most convincing smile and tucks the ticket into the pocket of her coat. Josie’s face softens, only to go stony all over again when Zevran yanks his ticket out of her hand.

Josie and Zevran were honest to the maker friends for maybe a whole week their sophomore year of college. Their families were from the same little town in Catalonia and, when you’re that young, sometimes that’s enough in the beginning. It didn’t take all that long for them to learn that they had absolutely nothing in common beyond that, but by the time the friendship had run it’s natural course they were both already so embedded in the larger group that it would have been a real drag to end things. It didn’t used to matter anyway. There were enough people all hanging out to act as a buffer between them. But today it’s like introducing cats and with Varric categorically refusing to take anyone’s calls, only responding in monosyllables on twitter, and Sera literally dead, Dasha is quickly realizing that she was the never the glue.

Besides, the tepid peace between them is powered entirely by the fumes of old memories. Old memories they can’t even really talk about now without wading into a field of landmines. And as they head up the line toward the entrance gate, Dasha can tell Josie’s about to pop.

Zevran’s in a foul mood too. Twitchy. Glancing around like he’s worried about seeing someone he’d rather not. Dasha’s annoyed. They’re the only people under forty and above ten here this early in the afternoon. Who the hell does he think he’s gonna see? Zev sniffs like a dog as they head past the gate. A long, reflecting pool stretches out in front of them, flanked by willows and a thick groundcover of hostas. “Maker, why are we even here?”

“Because this event is enjoyable, Zevran,” Josie scolds over her shoulder, “because friends do _enjoyable _things together.”

“Oh, we’re friends are we?”

“Gonna use the bathroom quick.” Dasha doesn’t wait for them to reply before she goes off path. The soil is soft and wet under her feet and she walks until she finds a knobby tile path. It leads to a glass-walled building that looks big enough that it might have a bathroom.

The interior is humid, the turfy carpet a little curled on the edges. The little sign beside one of the doors reads _Aquatic House and Orchid Collection _and Dasha likes the way it evokes bubbling ponds and long dripping vines of flowers. She didn’t really need to go to the bathroom, though sometimes her body is trickily numb these days, just needed a minute to get away from the chatter, to be somewhere by herself. She rakes her fingers through her hair and takes a long, deep breath. The humid air feels nice. So does the smell of freshly tilled soil. The warmth is so good. Almost luxurious.

Dasha didn’t come to the Botanic Gardens much, even when she lived in the city, only a short train ride away at NYU. Mostly because the tickets were always way out of her budget. Still are, she reminds herself. Especially now. But Josie’s parents are members. Well, no, not _just_ members. The Montilyet wing of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens looms at the back end of the compound. It’s a big brick building full of poppies and tulips and Dasha always used to think there was some kind of sick symbolism in that. Fields of poppies swaying in a manufactured wind inside brick walls so thick the sound of traffic is muted entirely. She doesn’t like to think in those metaphors anymore. They cut too close to the bone, follow those well-trodden paths she’d walked so freely and happily down at UCLA. When she was an academic. When she had a goal, an identity. Dasha kneads at her temples with one hand, eyeing the can of sake she hasn’t bothered with yet. She flinches at the sound it makes when she cracks it open. It goes down sweet. Sweeter than she expects and she flips the can over to examine the ingredients. Twenty-five grams of sugar, Andraste’s fucking tits. She tosses the rest in the trashcan.

Dasha jumps when Zevran taps loudly on the glass. Josie scowls at him, waving for Dasha to come outside. She takes another breath then pushes off the wall. Cold air rushes into her lungs as she opens the door, a shiver rolls down her whole body. Josie rubs her hands along her arms like she’s trying to warm her. “There are you, maker. Are you ready to start the tour?”

The flowers lose their appeal pretty quickly. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all and the majesty of their scope fades once you’re walking underneath them. There’s a Japanese drum show on the stage at the end of the cherry blossom rows, but it isn’t much better. Dasha’s heart feels jumpy and she can tell, as they as meander away from the stage, that everyone else is feeling pretty much the same way. Every so often Josie brings her fingers gingerly to her jaw and Zevran keeps clenching and unclenching his fists. So they wander off. Drifting away from the cherry trees in silence, winding through rows of mouthy tulips.

There aren’t many topics they can easily broach these days. Reminiscing in any capacity is definitely off the table. There’s a ghost in their memories now, haunting their every word. Dasha thinks Sera might find that funny, that she’s the spook in their attic. What she would decidedly _not _find funny, though, is the way the three of them are standing around like mourners, shuffling their feet and not talking. Dasha and Zevran have always been comfortable steeping silently in their own heads, but Dasha knows Josie can barely stand it. She’s practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, reading the name of each flower and shrub they pass. Dasha knows the gears in Josie’s brain are spinning, trying to figure out a topic of conversation that won’t end in tears or fighting. But if memories are off the table, it means Josie’s forced to wade through the swamps of their personal lives. Something she’s never done all that elegantly to begin with. Dasha can handle her well-intentioned missteps, but Zevran has all the social grace of a junkyard dog and when Josie asks off-hand if he has to work that night, he scrunches up his face like she’s slapped him. “Don’t ask me about my job.” He hisses.

Josie prickles. “Why not? I thought you liked temping.”

“Why the fuck would I like temping? Do you know _anyone _who likes temping?”

“I’m just trying to make conversation.”

“Well let’s _make conversation _about something else, holy shit.”

Dasha swallows hard, wishing suddenly she’d kept the sake. She falls a few steps behind, trying to divert her attention to the flowers. The words on their little placards are meaningless, she can’t follow them. Her mind drifts elsewhere. Back to the only thing it knows these days. She and Sera went to the botanical garden in LA once. They’d taken shrooms beforehand, waited for them to kick in before buying a ticket, and wandered aimlessly for hours, laughing and laughing about nothing and everything. Sera left with pockets full of little clippings she’d lopped off with her fingernails. _Just sampling, _she’d said with a wink. They’d come down at Sera’s place, picking at day old pizza while they arranged the clippings in jars on Sera’s windowsill. Maker, that’s all so far away now. The day feels suddenly brutally cold. Brutally lonely. Dasha’s stomach lurches.

She trots to catch up with Josie and Zevran, but finds that the conversation’s only gotten more poisonous. “Oh please,” Josie says with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “I don’t need this from you today. I just wanted all of us to do something nice.”

Zevran laughs bitterly. “Why? Because you want to get some good quality time in before we start to kick the bucket too.”

It’s like a bomb going off, a protracted slow silence, invisible shrapnel flying out in all directions. Josie goes pale and Dashes reaches out like she can pull Zevran back and take what he’s said with him.

But it’s too late. Josie grimaces, then straighten, nose tilted up. “You know what?” She rummages through her purse, producing two twenties and shoving them roughly into Zevran’s hand. “Enjoy the rest of the festival.”

“Josie.” Dasha reaches out, but she shakes her off. “Josie, please. Please don’t go.”

“It’s fine.” She leans over to kiss Dasha on the cheek. She smells like freshly pressed linen, like jasmine; her cheek is tight like Dasha’s, dry from crying. “I have some work to do at the consulate today anyway.”

Dasha watches her go, heels clicking on the cobblestone, then spins around to face Zevran. “Why did you have to do that?”

“Do what!?” But he’s deflated too, frowning, looking a little off-center. He gives Dasha a half-hearted shrug. “Whatever, she’s so sensitive.”

“Maybe _you _should be more sensitive.” Zevran’s mouth twitches. Dasha smooths her hair off her face and sighs. “Maker, whatever. Let’s just get the rest of this over with.”

They don’t stay in the gardens much longer. And they don’t talk much. Dasha’s already forgiven him. And Zevran probably knows it. This is how things always are between them, how things will probably always be. They don’t really agree on where they’re going now that they’re out of the garden, don’t really need to. They drift lazily beside each other and soon the streets are darkening around them and the row of rickety, old buildings where Zevran lives come into view. It looks worse than she remembers. Zevran looks worse too. Exhausted, a little twitchy, like just seeing the place has drained him.

Dasha catches the distinct scent of mold as they head up the carpeted steps, the hall lit by a single fixture. It’s cracked on one side, casting a spiderweb shadow on the wall. The wallpaper is peeling at the baseboards, revealing a cigarette-stained white paint underneath.

His apartment is so dark when he opens the door that Dasha lingers in the hall. Music wafts down another set of stairs, the muted sounds of an argument two doors down. He flips the light and after a minute of flickering, it settles. There’s not a lot to see, really. The single window in the place is so narrow and so high up that barely any light makes it into the room. He doesn’t have a couch, doesn’t have a tv. Just a clanking fridge, an old folding card table. The mattress has no sheets. His laptop sits open by his lone, bare pillow. She doesn’t really remember him being this hard up the last time she saw him, but it’s not really the right time to ask about it. It will probably never be the right time.

Zevran stretches, rolling his neck. “We’re drinking right?” Dasha makes a noncommittal sound in her throat, squinting at some of the posters he’s got up on the walls. They’re all pretty abstract, band posters she figures, but the one right above his bed raises the hairs on her neck. It’s the Devil from the tarot, only knows that because Sera used to give readings. The image is enormous, its central figure wrapped tightly in chains, blood seeping from the places on his animal body where the chains have cut in. But he doesn’t seem to be in pain – and the substantial cock erect between his two goat legs assures her that it is a he – but instead looks sternly out toward her. Two nude figures look placidly out at her too, bound by their wrists to the platform where the Devil sits. Dasha turns her back on it. The fight down the hall picks up tempo.

Zevran doesn’t seem to notice. He yanks a case of Hamms from the top of his fridge and grins. “Shitty beer for shitty people.”

Dasha snorts, trying to regain some composure. “You know you can refrigerate that, right? Might make it less awful.”

“What for? I’m here to suffer.” She can almost feel the poster behind her, its powerful gaze prickly on her back.

Josie once called the roof of Zevran’s building a tar pit. Patently refused to go out on it and as her shoes stick as she walks across to the far end of it, Dasha’s inclined to agree with her. But she’s really beyond giving a shit at this point, worn out to her very bones, so when Zevran plops down on a threadbare couch that looks like it’s sinking down into the concrete, Dasha does the same. It smells like mildew. Like rot. But it’s quiet up here. As quiet as you can get outside in New York at least. Just the occasional plane overhead breaking the ambient hum of the building’s massive heating hood. It’s familiar. Almost too familiar. Sitting out here on the roof, the city spread out before them.

Dasha almost asks, as she fumbles to roll them a joint, if Zev remembers how good Sera was at this. Instead, she just sighs, handing the sloppy joint to Zevran and says, “I’ve never been good at this.”

Zev just shrugs, struggling a little with the lighter before it takes. A cold breeze slips along the roof. “So, been meaning to say something.” His voice is muffled by the joint clenched between his teeth. “You’re skinny as shit these days.” Dasha stiffens. “I mean you don’t look bad or anything.” He chuckles softly to himself. “I mean, shit, this is New York. Everybody’s…” He trails off, taking a long drag. “Honestly, you look like good, it’s just-“

“I get it.”

“Right.” He sniffs, looking uncharacteristically like he’s trying to choose his words carefully. “Well, anyway. If you ever want to talk.”

“Yeah.” She snatches the joint from him and takes a hit. Her brain is so frazzled. All she needs is a good night’s sleep, but that’s evaded her for weeks now. “I’m fine, actually, but thanks.”

“Sure, sure.” The silence that was so comfortable before is now unbearable. Zevran’s the first to crack. He shifts where he’s sitting, shivering like a preening bird. “You know what you need?” Dasha raises a single eyebrow. “You need to get fucked.”

She honest to the maker laughs. Yeah, actually, she probably does. She’s desperate to be touched, desperate to finally release all the tension she’s been holding inside of herself for a month. Maybe for longer. She can feel it, the way little pains shoot up her neck, the way her head hurts almost all the time. But she can’t relax long enough to even masturbate, much less let someone else have a go. She’d fucked once since Sera’s death. Sort of. He’d barely inched himself inside when she started to cry. It spooked the guy so much he’d bolted, leaving his underwear and belt in a heap at the end of her bed. “I think that’s probably the opposite of what I need.” She passes the joint back.

“Someone needs to force you out of your fucking head.”

Dasha takes the joint back. It makes her mouth feel incredibly dry. “Sounds violent.”

“Don’t you like violent?”

Dasha looks at him from the corner of her eyes. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

He laughs. “Come on. I’ve seen a couple of those films you write about or whatever.”

“I’m not in my program anymore. I don’t write about anything.”

“Okay, those films you _wrote _about then.”

“Okay.”

He leans over, trying to catch her eyes. She evades him. “I know you know exactly what I mean.”

She takes a long pull from the joint. “I really don’t.”

Zevran huffs. “Remember when we split up at the club?”

Now she does look at him. He reaches for the joint but she holds it out of his reach. “You mean when you _left me_ at the club?”

He scoffs, grabbing the joint from her hands. “Oh please, you were fine.” She rolls her eyes, looking back out across the roof. “I went to a BDSM club.” She glances over at him, genuinely surprised. She probably shouldn’t be. Given what she knows about him, about his sexual proclivities.

“Like a sex club?”

“I mean that would be implied by the name, yes.”

Dasha sits up, flustered. “No, I mean like are people fucking at this club? Not just…because sometimes it’s just about, you know, the aesthetic, I guess, I mean…” She trails off, lividly red. Back in her department, she was known for her provocative work. The films she researched toed the line between art and pornography. Sensual and violent and rough. It’s embarrassing to feel shy like this. Even more so to actually admit that she has no idea about BDSM in practice, no idea what it even looks likes.

“Yeah, there’s fucking.” A heavy silence falls again between them. “Think about it?”

“Why do you think I’d be interested in something like that?”

Zevran just shrugs. “Might make you feel something other than shitty for a few hours.”

“Hours!?” Dasha leans back, nursing her beer. “Maker’s balls. I’m lucky if I get fifteen minutes.”

“Your sex life depresses me.”

“Oh fuck off.” Dasha sinks down further into the couch. It feels a little damp and she scowls. “Fine.”

“Fine what?”

“When’s the party?”

Zevran laughs, genuinely delighted. “You never fail to surprise me.” She never fails to surprise herself. “But hold your horses, my sweet girl. You’d need to get tested first.”

“Tested?”

“STD tests. And unpartnered players need a negative pregnancy test and proof of birth control.”

“Wow.” Dasha pulls her legs up close to her chest, curls like a little animal on that rotten couch. The weed and the beer have made her feel sloppy, tired. No part of this wild conversation is sticking, not really. The sky is blue dark above them, the stars drowned out by the glittering city below. She doesn’t want to think about anything too hard, because all roads lead to Sera. Especially here. Especially in New York fucking City. Maker, why hadn’t she run somewhere else? Anywhere else?

“If you can get them to me by Wednesday, I can get you in.”

Dasha glances over at him. He looks especially handsome in the low light, but tired too. Older than she remembers him ever being and Dasha wonders if she looks old like that too. She’ll be 25 in a few months. An age Sera never got to see. She shakes the thought from her head. Tests, tests, tests. She can probably swing that. It’s Sunday. And it’s not like she has much else going on. Maker, Dasha can’t believe she’s even entertaining this. “Seems pretty intense.”

“I told you. Exclusive.”

Dasha turns to face him again, laying her head against the back of the couch, holding her legs tight to her chest. “If it’s so exclusive, how are you even going to get me in?”

Zevran shrugs, passing the joint back. Dasha takes a hit. Her lips are so dry and cracked that it hurts to pucker them. “They’re having a party this weekend. I’m senior enough now that I can bring a plus one.”

Dasha frowns. “How long have you been going to this place?”

Zevran’s evasive. “A while.” He glances to the side, then back. “Warn me before you tell Josie, okay? I’m gonna turn my phone off when you do”

Dasha snorts. “She probably doesn’t even know what BDSM is.”

“Still.” Zevran leans back and takes the joint, blowing a few smoke rings. They disappear beside the moon. He looks over at her. “So are you interested or what?”

Dasha takes the joint back and inhales for a long time. The horizon is rimmed in the kind of pink reserved for summertime. It fades into a pale blue and then above, so dark it’s hard to fathom. She closes her eyes and the quiet is deafening. She feels completely and totally alone, even with Zevran beside her. There’s a hole inside of her that grows bigger every day. It’s in the shape of a home she can never go back to.

Sera would find this so funny, would dare her to go. Sera would laugh in a way that Dasha doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to again. Dasha opens her eyes and passes the joint back. “Yeah, I’m interested.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading guys <3. 
> 
> The next update will be pretty lengthy (and there will be smut ;) )


	3. Chapter 3*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas enter stage left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse any typos/grammar weirdness. I'm going to go back with a fine-toothed comb in the morning, I just couldn't wait to post it tonight.

“Are you sure about this?” Josie has a hand on Dasha’s arm and when she asks, she squeezes lightly. Josie has always run just a few degrees hotter than anyone Dasha’s ever known, her touch like slipping into a warm bath. And Dasha leans into it even though she knows she needs to pull away if she’s ever going to leave the apartment. She’s the only one who seems unchanged, physically at least. At the funeral, she’d been radiant. Poised and dignified in a way no one else in attendance could muster. She squeezes again and Dasha realizes she hasn’t responded. Josie lets go and flits back over to the sink. She’s got a bottle of sweet vermouth balanced on the edge of it and rummages around in the cabinet above until she fishes out a squat jar of amarena cherries. They look almost foreboding in the orange-y light of the kitchen, like little hearts sloshing around behind glass. Dasha flinches at the thought and looks out their narrow window to try and distract herself. It’s dark now and the street is eerily quiet. A lone cab waits in front of the brownstone across the way, a group of girls huddle close together as they head down the sidewalk. “I know Zevran thinks this is a good idea, but, I won’t lie, I don’t like it.” Dasha turns to face her, arms crossed over her chest. Josie’s dark curls are pulled up into a bun at the base of her neck, the shorter pieces stuck to the glistening skin of her forehead and neck. It’s a narrow kitchen and with the oven and coffee machine going, an almost oppressive heat has settled inside. Dasha’s still frigid though, her bare arms and legs covered in goosebumps. Josie clacks her painted fingernails against the kitchen counter, the shimmering varnish catches the light.

Dasha rubs her arms, trying to coax warmth back into them. “I mean I’m nervous, obviously. But it's not like I can just hide out here in your apartment forever.”

“_Our _apartment.” Josie corrects, though Dasha hasn’t paid a cent of rent in the two weeks she’s lived here. “And that is _not _a good reason to do something like this.” She wags her finger at Dasha and it’s such a familiar gesture that Dasha’s shoulders release just a little. “Besides, you’re not hiding. You’re healing.” Dasha almost laughs but as Josie leans down to check the contents of the oven the hot smell of olives and cooking rosemary rises into the kitchen she can’t help but smile, immediately comforted by the warmth of it all, the familiarity. It has a bitter aftertaste, though, and Dasha clamps down hard before her thoughts have a chance to wander toward any memories of Sera. Josie clicks her tongue, pleased. She’s been at it all day. Batches and batches of focaccia for one of her family’s infamous gatherings on Sunday. “And even if you weren’t, I doubt I would be on board with you going to, of all places, a sex club!” She lowers her voice, like they aren’t the only ones in the apartment. “Especially given what’s happened with you and your program.”

Dasha stiffens. “What the hell does my program have to do with this?” Josie demurs, returning to check on her focaccia without another word. Maker, _that _had been a phone call. When she told her about quitting her program, Dasha’s own mother had simply asked if she was alright. Hell, most people back in nowhere New Mexico didn’t even know what a PhD meant to begin with. Most of the people she grew up with didn’t finish high school and her mother had only gotten her GED when Josie offered to pay for classes their junior year of college. But Josie, Josie knew exactly what Dasha was walking away from when she packed up her Los Angeles apartment. UCLA. Five years guaranteed funding. Shit, more than that since she’d managed to score her own outside grants that sent her trekking across Central Europe, picking up languages like souvenirs, haunting old film studios, ornate art theaters. A future so bright and big it became blinding in the stony face of her grief. So Dasha called at a time when she knew Josie was heading to work, told her, then immediately hung up. She’d turned her phone on silent, dodging Josie’s calls for days. Knowing, just knowing, that if Josie caught her before she’d taken the plunge, she might never do it.

They’d seen each other for the first time after that at the funeral. Josie took her aside in the red-checkered Italian place they had for the repast dinner and Dasha braced herself for an absolute dressing down. What she got instead was a long, tearful hug. That might have been worse.

Honestly, they still haven’t really talked about it which is why Dasha’s watching Josie like a hawk, expecting this long-deferred lecture to take shape right here and now. But Josie just shrugs. “I just worry about you is all.” She knows that Josie means to say she’s being impulsive. Quitting, running away.

“I know.” Dasha softens into a smile. “I know and I appreciate it, but I’ve got it handled. And I’ll be with Zevran. He’s been to this place before. He knows how it all works.”

Josie raises a single eyebrow. She’s started to make herself a drink. Sloshing the vermouth with some rye whiskey that looks like it might cost more than the balance in Dasha’s checking account. “You know that doesn’t reassure me.” She sniffs at her glass, adds a little more vermouth. The drink turns a mahogany color. “I think I’d be less worried if you were going alone.”

Dasha groans. “Maker, he is not _that _bad.”

Josie scowls at her. “He really is.” She kneels down in front of the oven. Pulls out the finished focaccia and replaces it with another. Steam curls off the finished bread. Dasha’s stomach tightens. Josie glances up at her. “Listen, I’ve already opened the Sazerac. Why don’t we split it? Get a little buzzed, then maybe we could take the train to Brighton Beach, take a stroll along the boardwalk?”

It sounds nice, actually. It also sounds like a trap. Dasha wants to tell her that she didn’t nuke her old life to come back here and do the same things she always has, but that might leave Josie an opening to finally ask just actually _what _she plans to do. Which, as of right now, Dasha cannot even begin to fucking answer. So instead she just shrugs. “Hey, I want to do this. Besides, I think it might even be good for me. I read an article about the benefits.” Skimmed really, but she’s trying to make a case here. “A couple articles actually. And Varric thinks-“

Josie raises a single eyebrow. “Wait, you told Varric about this?”

Well, no, she actually hadn’t. Not exactly. She’d written him a long, rambling text message that he’d left on read for more than a full day before replying with a quick _short on time, will respond later. _But Dasha figures he must have at least skimmed the thing and if he’d been completely opposed to the idea, then he would have taken the time to tell her so right? But that’s neither here nor there because Varric is probably the only other person in the world that Josie considers to be a fully-fledged adult and Dasha can see that his imaginary vote of confidence is easing her up off the idea a little. “Yeah, he seemed warm to the idea.” She swallows hard, “and besides, I can leave whenever I want. If I get a harsh vibe, I’ll bolt.”

Josie chews her lower lip then sighs. “Okay, but call me?”

Dasha smiles at her. “Of course.”

“Good.” She frowns, looking a little off-center. “You know, it’s not too late to tell Zevran to fuck off and have a couple drinks with me. Significantly more relaxing than…doing whatever you’ll be doing at a leather club.”

“BDSM club.” Dasha corrects.

“What?”

Dasha clears her throat. “Leathers is like a style, I think. BDSM is like…” She trails off because honestly she has no clue what the difference is really and it’s a reminder that she’s walking steadily off a cliff. But it’s just a night. And she’s not going to stay here and get drunk with Josie, just waiting for her to start in with that thin, sad voice she gets about all the times she was too hard on Sera, and all the times she wasn’t hard enough. 

Josie’s hug surprises her. She smells like flour and honey whiskey and her skin is so soft against Dasha’s. Josie’s holding onto her like she never will again and the feeling makes Dasha’s heartache. Josie pulls away, but keeps her hands firmly on Dasha’s shoulders. “I’ll be up all night arranging the Sunday dinner, alright? So you call me anytime.” Dasha reaches up to hold Josie’s wrists. “I’ll be there in a second if you need me.” She hesitates. “And don’t fuck anyone.” Dasha tries to argue, but Josie shushes her. “Or, at least, think very, very hard before you fuck someone.”

“Sure thing, mom.” She presses a kiss to Josie’s cheek.

The sign on the building says _Serpentine_. Dasha reads it out loud like saying it will clarify how she should feel about it. She catalogs and cross-references the word in her head and comes up with nothing. Or nothing concrete at least. It conjures immediately the image of the soft bodies of snakes writhing together, full of poison. Inauspicious.

Dasha shifts a little on her heels. Simple black. Taller than she’d choose for herself. Borrowed from Josie. The purse too, a little black clutch on a gold chain. The dress, at least, is her own. Black like the rest. A swingy, satiny thing that falls low on her back and skims mid-thigh at the hem. Dasha looks back up at the sign. It’s a purple neon and its reflection on the dark brick makes it look like it there are hundreds of these signs, trailing back into the wall of the building.

The building itself is, at first glance, not much to look at. If the entrance wasn’t in an alleyway, she might mistake it for any other building on the street of quiet restaurants, open late. The laundromat across the way is nearly deserted. Only one man waits under the white fluorescence for his clothes. The place is technically in Chelsea, but has none of the neighborhood’s usual feeling. It’s kind of a dump, actually. Or maybe Dasha’s just getting spooked.

All of this was just an abstraction before now. Something vague and far away. She’s even masturbated a couple times to the idea of it, to the filthy images she found online. But now that she’s here, that the club is here in front of her, Dasha’s jumpy. It feels a little like she’s gone from black and white to full color, all of her senses raw. She turns to Zevran, watches as he finishes his cigarette. He’s in a leather jacket, poured into a pair of impossibly tight jeans. The hoop in his left ear glitters when he moves. “What does it mean?”

He glances at her. “What does what mean?”

She nods at the sign. “The name.”

Zevran snorts. “Snake, I don’t know. It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t overthink this shit, okay?” He pokes her hard in the arm. “I mean that. All night. Get out of your fucking head or you’re not gonna have any fun.” She glowers at him. He ignores her, knocking hard on the door.

“You gave to knock?” Dasha hisses, keeping her voice low. The air around them has slowed to a stop. The train whooshes along the track above them, quieter than she’s used to. Maker, she’s never heard New York this subdued, quieter even than on Zev’s roof.

Zevran shushes her and turns back to the door. A slot near the top slides open and a pair of eyes asks for a password. It’s all so canned, like from bad movie, that Dasha nearly laughs. But there’s something in the cadence of the man’s voice that knocks that laugh right out of her. Zevran smirks, then rises up on his toes to whisper _Anteinferno _through the slot. Dasha does manage a laugh this time, just a strained, nervous chuckle. It’s comically familiar. Comically relevant. Dasha wonders if they’re trying to reference Dante or Salo, figures that it doesn’t matter either way. Neither is comforting. She’s starting to feel a little dizzy, her heart pounding so loud in her chest that her ribs pinch. The door opens. Zevran pulls her through by the arm.

The room behind the door reminds her immediately of the waiting rooms in haunted houses on Coney Island. Small and dark, an old-timey ticket booth in one corner beside a matte black door. But the man behind the counter looks like he could lay them both out with one hand. He’s shirtless, a pair of leather chaps on his long legs. He’s got them propped on the counter, scrolling lazily through his phone. He glances up at Zevran. “Member?”

Zev nods, producing a small card from his back pocket. “And guest.”

The man’s eyes slide over to her, like he’s noticing her for the first time. “Name?”

Dasha’s rooted in place and after a few seconds of silence, Zev whirls around to grab her, pulling her roughly toward him. “Tell him your name,” he hisses. She can see a muscle jumping in Zevran’s throat and realizes suddenly that he’s nervous too.

She inhales. “Dasha, um, Lavellan.”

“ID?”

She fumbles in her purse before shoving it into his outstretched hand. He looks at it for a long time and Dasha holds her breath. She’d sent her medical results to Zevran a few days before. It feels odd now that this guy probably has them, can peruse the history of her body. She bounces a little on the balls of her feet, her heels scraping against the concrete floor each time she moves. The man looks up at her, then back at the id, then back again. After a moment of tense silence, he tosses it back to her, jerking his head toward the door. Zevran squeezes her hand. She hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.

The club is as dark as she’d imagined it would be, as loud and as crowded. The bar’s off in the far corner, lit up like a carousel. Music’s playing, a deep thrumming bass, and neon lights beat in time to it. The room is long, broken into sections. A dance floor over by the bar, some lounges over in the other corner. They pass by a woman in all leather, her tits free and bouncing. She yanks a man in a mask to his knees and a sudden, urgent thought rises in Dasha’s mind. She tugs at Zevran’s sleeve. “Hey, how will they know what I want?”

Zev leans back to hear her better, but never slows. He’s walking with purpose toward the bar. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, like, how will they know what kind of person I am?”

Zevran stops right in the middle of the club. He looks back at her like she’s speaking gibberish, and embarrassing him thoroughly doing it. Dasha remembers what Josie said about her being better off by herself and her skin prickles. “What kind of…oh, right,” he chuckles and Dasha exhales, “they’ll ask you.” He smirks. “But I doubt they’ll have to. You don’t have the charisma to be a dom.”

“Ouch.”

He pats her on the cheek. “Try not to look so terrified.”

Dasha follows Zev to the bar, nails dug into the flesh of his leather jacket. She’s a little thunderstruck. Embarrassingly humiliated by all the blatant horny energy in the club. A group of masked women passes by, nude except for feathery masks and heavy collars around their necks. Dasha feels suddenly very exposed. “Were we suppose to wear masks?” She hisses into Zevran’s ear.

“Nah.” He sidles up the bar. “Those probably belong to the Phantom.”

She glances back at them. They’re shuffling through a door at the back of the club. “The Phantom?”

“One of the house doms.”

“Like Phantom of the Opera?” Dasha snorts. “That’s so corny, Maker.” She pauses. “Wait, what’s a house dom?”

Zevran turns, two champagne flutes in his hand. The pale pink liquid inside bubbles in the light. He hands her one and they cheers. Dasha swallows most of it in one go, trying not to imagine what’s in it. She likes that it isn’t very sweet and the way it’s making her feel pleasantly light-headed. “You didn’t do any research?” She glances over at him. “I’m shocked as shit.”

She frowns. “Just tell me what a house dom is, okay?” She finishes her drink, but keeps the glass tight in her hand. Most people in the club are just standing around. A few are dancing. But Dasha can’t stop her eyes from drifting over to the far back corner of the room. A woman is bent over a table and the man looming behind her is laying into her, paddling her in quick, hard strokes. Dasha can’t watch it anymore, turns away, the low dip at the back of her dress suddenly exposing.

“Depends on the club, but all the house doms here actually work here. Or most of them, at least. They’re long-term in the scene. Talented motherfuckers.” Zevran loops his arm in Dasha’s. He’s still scanning the room, still looking for someone, and Dasha tries to figure out what talent has to do with anything at all. “They normally charge an hourly rate, but not at parties like these. They come to play with the rest of us.”

“Play? Like fuck?”  
Zevran snorts. “Yes, sweet girl. Imagine that.”

“Fuck off.”

Zev just shrugs. He stretches high on his toes again, still searching. She’s about to ask him who the fuck he’s looking for when he starts talking again. “Depends though. Some people just come to watch.” Dasha’s skin prickles again. “Anyway, the house doms have rooms in the back. Like for session.”

“Sessions” Dasha parrots him blandly. Zevran’s on the move again, pulling her along toward a set of leather chairs in the corner. They pass the woman bent over the table and when she cries out in animal pain, a sudden homesick terror rises up inside of Dasha. It’s childlike. She wants to cry. Wants to call her mother, to have Josie come pick her up. _Maker_, she wants to talk to Sera. Dasha wriggles away from Zevran, trying to pull herself from his grip. “Andraste’s tits, Zevran. I don’t think I can do this.”

For once, she has Zevran’s full attention. He stops, pulling her over near one of the dark couches. His eyes dart back and forth and she knows that his mind is absolutely spinning. “Stop it.” Dasha manages to pull herself away, glances back at the entrance. Zevran takes her by the shoulders. “Hey.” He squeezes. “_Hey._”

Dasha exhales, dragging her hands down her face. “I’m pulling myself together. I’m pulling myself together.”

He lets go. “Good. You’re hot okay. And you’re funny and interesting and all that shit too, but it doesn’t have to matter here, okay? You can be anybody and nobody. Just flirt. Just find somebody you like. It’s easy.”

“Easy, yeah.” Dasha makes to set her glass down, but her fingers are still trembling and she loses her grip. It clatters to the floor.

She hasn’t seen him yet, not all of him, just sees the toes of his polished shoes. He leans down to pick her glass, handing it to her when he straightens back up. Zevran shrinks beside him, almost deferential, and Dasha can almost see her breath with how the air slows.

The first thing she notices is his posture. Stern and graceful as he towers over her. The second thing she notices is his watch. Nice. Not flashy, but clearly expensive. And maybe it’s that trailer trash part of her, the part she’s tried so hard to bury, but the watch terrifies her. She expects him to be frightening, but when she glances up, he’s looking at her softly. A glittering curiosity in his eyes that settles her. She brushes her hair back behind her ears and lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Your glass.” He sets it gently down on the table then steps around it, closing some of the space between them. She can smell the delicate musk of his cologne. He has an easy grace about him and the tailored suit he’s wearing only accentuates it.

He’s striking. Handsome certainly, but not in a way Dasha would have ever considered before. His narrow eyes have an almost soulful quality to them, pale and watchful. His head is shaved. A bold choice but what might detract on another’s face, only sharpens his features. A strong jaw, an angular nose. His lips look soft and longing rushes suddenly through her. She barely knows what to do with it. Can’t remember the last time she felt like this. Doesn’t know if she’s ever really felt like this and the singularity of it is frightening. He nods at Zevran then turns his attention back to Dasha. “Do you have a partner tonight?” She can’t really place his accent. British maybe? But she’s so focused on it that it takes her a moment to realize that he’s asked her a question.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry.” She blinks at him. “What?” 

A slight wry smile appears on his face. “I asked if you had a partner tonight. Do you?”

Dasha jerks back to look at Zevran. For permission, for guidance, for _anything. _He’s got this look on his face that, at first, she can’t parse. And then she sees it. Longing. Intense, deep longing. The man clears his throat and spins around to look at him.

“Um,” Dasha fiddles with the chain on Josie’s purse. She feels suddenly very young. “No, I don’t.”

He chuckles softly, clasping his hands behind his back. “Just my luck.”

It’s hard to keep up with him and she wonders if that’s deliberate. If maybe he’s trying to disorient her. If this is part of the game they started to play as soon as the two of them slipped through a door at the back of the room.

After the dark neons of the club, the bright, almost summery light in the hallway is startling. Dasha rubs her eyes, blinks the hall into focus. If she wasn’t dressed like this, if the faint thumping of the music from the club wasn’t still beating under her feet, she could pretend she was in some kind of high-end office. One side of the hall is big windows overlooking the street, the other wooden doors. She can’t hear anything going on behind those doors and the idea, at first comforting, becomes quickly sinister. They’re probably sound-proofed. That line of thought leads her down dangerous roads and she realizes with a jolt that she has no idea what’s about to happen to her. That she doesn’t know this man at all and her agreement to go with him was fueled entirely by alcohol and impulse. But before she has a chance to form anything even resembling a plan of action, the man in front of her slows to a stop and turns to face her. She must have flinched, must have cowered just a little from him, because he softens the expression on his face, clasps his hands gracefully behind his back. In the light of the hallway, she can see that his eyes are a pale, almost unnatural green, can see a smattering of faint freckles at the height of his cheekbones. She’s still got the remnant of her California tan and she wonders if that’s what he’s examining as his eyes rove over her body. His eyes stop at her face and there’s an incredible power behind there. She feels transparent under his gaze, naked in front of him already. “Hard and soft limits?”

She blinks up at him, but he offers no explanation. She stutters a little before she can finally get out that she’s never actually done this before.

He frowns, seems genuinely startled. “At all?”

Dasha doesn’t really know what to say to that, figures that a college boyfriend once cuffing her to his bedpost with novelty Halloween handcuffs doesn’t count. But he seems to get the picture and his brow knits. She’s sure that he’s about to tell her that he’s not interested and is so busy trying to figure out why that bothers her so much that she misses his nod toward one of the doors. But then his hand is firmly on her jaw and her brain goes completely blank. “I require you to pay attention.

Her eyes widen. “Sorry.”

His face softens, his grip too. He taps his thumb once, twice on her bottom lip. “I’ll be gentle with you.” The promise comes seemingly from nowhere but Dasha slumps a little into his hands, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. He removes his touch just as suddenly, hands once again behind his back, his posture severe. “Your name?”

She’s quicker on the draw now, her attention now siphoned completely in his direction. “Dasha.”

He pauses, head cocked, like he’s digesting her name, then nods. She wants to ask him if he likes it, is immediately humiliated by the idea, then instead asks him his own name. Only realizing once she’s asked that maybe she isn’t supposed, maybe she shouldn’t have told him her name at all. A soft smile appears on his lips. But only briefly before he’s stern and stolid again. “You’ll call me sir.” Dasha swallows hard. “Come here.” She hesitates, tenses, then releases. She’s here, isn’t she? She might as well be _here. _

There’s only a few steps between them, but each feels huge and cavernous as she takes them. He rests his hands firmly on her shoulders and turns her to face the door. It’s open. She hadn’t noticed before. From outside she can’t see much. Just a brick accent wall, more hardwood floor. He pushes her gently forward, her heels clacking loudly on the floor. She can see a dark, leather divan pushed against the back wall, a table. She senses, as he guides her further inside, that there is more in her periphery, but doesn’t dare look anywhere but ahead. The door clicks shut behind her and then her heart starts to pound. Dasha tries to remember the articles she’d skimmed. Something about emotional release, something about trust. It all seems so complicated now. So completely out of reach. He squeezes her shoulders. It’s just the barest sensation, but Dasha takes it to mean he wants to comfort her and a wildly out of place gratitude roils up inside of her. She shoves it down.

He marches her to the middle of the room then releases her. His dress shoes make their own muted clacks on the hardwood as walks toward the far wall, he turns gracefully on his heels to face her, nodding once at the divan. “Have a seat.” She doesn’t mean to gawk, but her feet are stuck to the floor, her body severed completely from her brain. He gestures again. “It was not a request.” Dasha startles and he softens his tone, just a little. “Sit down.”

She doesn’t look at the room, just at the floor, and then at her own feet. She’s stiff, awkward, as she sits. He didn’t tell her what to do with her hands and she’s suddenly wracked with anxiety. She settles for settling them limply in her lap. A strap on her dress slides off her shoulder, but she’s afraid to move, practically afraid to breathe. But there’s a thrill there, bubbling under the surface.

He lets her sit in silence until she can hear her own heart, can hear the air as it floats around the room. And then he comes to stand in front of her. Dasha lets out a shuddering breath, looking furtively up at him, then immediately down at his shoes, at their dark, shiny leather.

His fingers are warm, soft, but the touch still startles her. He lets it linger on her arm until she settles again, then slides the dress strap up. His thumb traces her collarbone. “Good girl.” It comes out deep, rumbly. Her stomach tightens. His fingers move softly up her neck, settling just below her chin. He tips it upward. “Look at me.”

She wavers, his eyes hard, bottomless, but his mouth has softened some and there’s a benevolence in his touch. “Why are you here tonight?”

Dasha stiffens. She wasn’t expecting questioning, wasn’t expecting any of this. She thought she’d be bent over a table like that woman in the club by now. He taps a finger on her jaw, expectant. “My friend asked me to come.”

“Your friend?” He tuts at her. “Not a very good reason to come to a place like this.”

She exhales, almost a laugh. “No, I guess not.”

He looks amused. “How about you try again then. Why are you here tonight?”

Dasha clenches her jaw and he must feel it because he starts to tap it, only letting up when she relaxes it. “I just moved back.” She’s just wandering now, no idea where what she’s started to say will end up. “To New York, I mean.” She worries her lip with her teeth. “It’s been a long time.” She isn’t sure why she’s being so honest with him, but as she looks up, she can’t remember if anyone’s ever listened to her this intently before. “I’ve had a…difficult year. I guess I’m looking for something different.”

He crouches in front of her so their faces are level. “And you think _this _will be something different?”

“I hope it will.” The surety in her voice surprises her.

His brow knits again, she can almost see him thinking. “I’ll take good care of you, Dasha.” His voice is smooth, has musculature. Up close, she can see the faintest cleft in his chin. He doesn’t smell like cologne up close. He smells warm and Dasha’s eyes flutter closed. He smells like old books, like dark polished wood and she knows, if she reached out, that his skin would be warm and vital. “But I bet there are hundreds of men in this city who’d want to take care of you.” Her eyes fly open. His gaze is steady. “This, _here, _is a different beast entirely. Why do you want _this_?

“I guess I didn’t know I did.” And it feels true. Truer than anything else in this wasteland of a year. She’s shivering all over, but the cold has faded away, replaced instead with coiled anticipation. One side of his mouth quirks up, eyes glittering. There’s a danger in them and something else, something she can’t place, but it lights something up deep inside of her.

He swipes his thumb along her bottom lip, watches her face like he’s trying to commit her to memory. It’s been a long time, _ages _really, since Dasha’s been this singularly focused. Her empty brain hums pleasantly. He pulls his hand away and Dasha finds herself leaning toward the absent touch. He makes no move to return it. “You should know that you’re safe here in this room, even when it feels like you’re not.” She narrows her eyes at him, takes her lip between her teeth. “I make the rules, but you’re the one in charge. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t.

“Good. Do I have your consent?”

She doesn’t ask for what, decides she’ll figure that out as she goes. Dasha feels docile. Pliable. Like she wants to get fucked hard enough that the pain stuck inside her body will shake loose. She’s not sure if she cares, in that moment, if he hurts her for real. “Yes.”

He stands back up and the room is suddenly boiling. Her skin feels slick, begging for touch. “I have rules.” He clasps his hands again behind his back. He’s so tall, so imposing. “Within these four walls, my rules are the only things that matter. Is that understood?” She nods. “I require verbal responses.”

“I understand.”

He rewards her with a curt nod. “When I ask you to do something, you will do it. When I’m speaking to you, you will look me in the eyes. I am Sir to you, and Sir alone. Is that clear?” Dasha’s tongue feels heavy in her mouth. Ripples have started to appear in that vast emptiness that has descended onto her brain. Something’s rising to the surface. She watches it come. The ripples get wider and wider and – “Is that clear?”

She snaps to attention. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

She squints at him, shaking her head. His face is impassive, but when she says nothing, he cocks a single eyebrow. A little mocking, a touch playful. “Oh! Yes, _sir._”

“That’s a good girl.” He reaches out to run the backs of his fingers softly along her cheek. “You’ll need a safe word.”

“Um, stop?”

The soft look returns and his voice is less measured when he speaks next. “You’ll need something a little less everyday than that, I should think.”

Dasha flushes. She cycles through words in her head. Each one that comes to mind seems inappropriate, too close to the bone. Mostly, they all remind her of Sera. And how could they not? Their lives had been so intertwined. From that first moment they’d bumped into each other outside Bobst Library their fates wove together. So Dasha tries to remember the times when they weren’t together, all those long research trips. And then it comes to her all at once: the perfect word. Solitary and without blemish. It’s a summer day. Bright and warm and the sky is a vast, incredible blue. Her first time in Venice, her first time at the Biennale. And to be there, to see everything that she’s seeing, feels huge on her shoulders. She’s out by one of the canals when she hears that incredible roar and learns the singular way metal smells when it’s blown into new, more interesting shapes. Dasha thinks, maybe, she’ll soon be blown into a new, more interesting shape and the word is out of her mouth before she can stop herself. “Detonography.”

He chuckles. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

“It’s a sculpting technique,” then she quickly adds, “for metal.” She winces. This man, she is sure, does not give a single shit about what the word means.

He taps his finger on her lip again, drawing her attention back to him. “You’re an artist then?’

“I…” Dasha balks. He doesn’t need to know. He probably doesn’t give a fuck either, but her brain supplies no convincing lies. Another tap. She glances up at him and realizes that she has no idea how much time has passed. He must have a glacial patience and Dasha gets the creeping feeling that she’s wasting his time. “No, um, I’m between jobs right now.”

She expects him to question her, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tightens his grip on her jaw. “I expect my questions to be answered in a timely manner. You’ll keep that in mind.” She flinches and his voice goes honeyed, almost teasing. “But that won’t be easy for you will it? I can tell already that you’re prone to distraction.” He leans close to her ear and whispers, “do you know what gave you away?” She shakes her head, but he says nothing. Each second of silence puts her more on edge.

She remembers herself. “No, sir.”

“Good girl.” He releases her jaw and runs both thumbs across her forehead. “The sweet little creases you get,” he taps between her eyebrows, “right here, when you’re not listening to me. When you're thinking so hard you’re not even here.”

She trembles. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be.” His breath is hot on her skin. When he moves to stand, she feels stranded there alone on the divan. She whimpers. A sound she’s never heard come out of her own mouth. But either the sound itself or her own surprise at it seems to please him. His smile is almost sweet. A generous smile. It’s fleeting. He’s stern again, the energy around him so intense that Dasha holds her breath. “Take your clothes off.”

The command goes off like a bomb and the room is suddenly humming with energy. Dasha stands, her nerves firing off all down her body. She kicks off her heels, feeling even smaller now without the extra height. The dress comes off with an easy brush of her shoulders, falling in a heap around her ankles. She’s started to ease her panties down when he stops her. “That’s enough.” She freezes mid-movement. He walks backward a few steps and takes her in. He’s studying her, she realizes, like her old advisor taught her how to study a painting. He cocks his head. “Stand up straight, please.”

She does, quick like he’s just rapped her with a ruler, and she is suddenly enormously self-conscious. Her underwear doesn’t match. It’s the first thing she thinks as she watches him watch her. The bra’s from a consignment store on Melrose Avenue in LA. It’s pretty, all peachy lace, but it’s old and a little frayed at the bottom. She can’t even remember what panties she’s wearing, but she knows they aren’t overtly sexy, they’re a little looser than they used to be. Part of her, maybe even a big part, never thought she’d get this far tonight.

If he minds, he doesn’t say so. “You’re a beautiful little thing, aren’t you?” All her muscles are pulled taut. Like prey caught in a predator’s paralyzing gaze. He walks toward her until she can feel his heat again, see his breathing. “You were asked a question. Have you already forgotten that you’re supposed to answer my questions?” His voice is perfectly even, betraying no emotion at all.

Dasha gulps. “No, sir.”

“That’s your second strike, little girl, two of three.” She doesn’t dare try and argue that she hasn’t even had a first. He clasps his hands again behind his back and begins to circle her, examining her from all sides. “What do you think will happen when you reach the third?” He stops behind her, leans down so they’re cheek to cheek. “Can you guess?”

“No, sir.” The terror around her has softened. Turned into something else, something new. Almost pleasure, faintly longing.

His fingers skim the lacy top of her bra, feather-light, humming quietly when he slides it down, exposing her tits. Dasha’s nipples are achingly hard in the cool night air. He takes them both between his fingers. “Look at you.” He nips at her ear. “If only the rest of you were so well-behaved.” He slides a hand up, brushing briefly across her throat, before rising to cup her face. The rest of her is freezing, but all the places he’s touched burn. “I don’t think my rules are very difficult. But you apparently do, don’t you?”

“No, sir. I don’t” 

“Well, you certainly seem to.” He presses a kiss just behind her ear. It’s so soft, so absolutely out of character, that she nearly turns to look at him. But she doesn’t. She stays shivering in his clutches. “They’re simple, really. And so, I would say, it logically follows that if someone were to continue to break them it would be in malice, not misunderstanding. And they would need to be punished. Wouldn’t you agree?” Dasha whimpers again, but her fear has evolved. It feels erotic, academically so. Classically so. She thinks suddenly of all the films she’s spent so long researching. All the scenes she’s slowed, rewound, taken notes on, where this, _exactly this, _was occurring. It feels different now that there’s no screen between her and the feeling. Different now that she’s in his hands and she, for once, doesn’t know how the scene will end.

He kisses her and it’s a shock. She hadn’t seen him coming, hadn’t felt him come back around. His mouth is hot and wet and so soft and he’s holding her so tightly against him. And suddenly this doesn’t feel like whatever it’s been. It feels like she’s back in LA, like she’s back in time, kissing a man she’s just met and desperately wants to fuck. Dasha pushes him backward to give herself leverage and takes his face hard in her hands, pulling him into a deeper kiss. Then, on impulse, she bites his lip. Harder than she should have, harder than she would have anywhere else. Later she’ll look back and wonder if this is because she wanted the pain he implied. Wanted him to hurt her. _Needed _him to. But in the moment it surprises her as much as it seems to surprise him.

He recovers quickly, though, hands taking hold of her wrists, pulling her roughly out of the kiss. He’s as out of breath as she is, a fine sheen of sweat on his collarbone where he’s opened the top button of his shirt. It’s the only indication she’s had any effect on him at all. His eyes are aflame, but they quickly recede back into that calm, placid look. He quirks an eyebrow. “Biting me? Such initiative, my badly behaved girl.” His grip on her wrists tightens. “Did I ask for initiative?” She shakes her head, taking her lip again between her teeth. This is starting to feel more like a game, albeit a dangerous one, and her breathing has evened out. “No, I did not. Strike three.” Her chest heaves and in a moment of tenderness, he runs his thumb across her cheekbone. But, like so much about him, it’s fleeting. He removes himself from her completely. “Don’t move. Not a muscle.”

She doesn’t dare, not even when he walks out of sight. She can hear him rustling behind her, opening and softly shutting the drawers of a cabinet she hadn’t noticed on her walk in. He hums quietly and the sound only serves to heighten her anticipation. Fear has never felt this intimate, this easy to parse. The intensity of the emotion startles her.

She gasps when he returns to her, has to tense every muscle to stop herself from moving. She can feel the cotton of his shirt, feel that he’s taken off his sport coat. With an almost absent casualness, he walks his fingers down her arms. She’s trembling now, actually shivering, but she’s trying so hard to stay still and maybe he can feel it, because he kisses the nape of her neck. “Good girl.” He tugs her bra down until it’s circling her waist. “You follow directions well when you want to. Shame it took so long to get you here.” His fingers skim the column of her throat and Dasha leans into the sensation, her body going slack. She tries to think if anything’s ever made her feel this way. Thinks of long ropes of kelp that scatter the cold beaches in San Francisco, of all the times she went there with Sera. Thinks of the damp smell of salt that would sometimes waft through the open windows in UCLA’s library. Of the trill of the warblers perched in the cottonwoods back home. A lifetime ago. He taps a single finger between her eyes, hard enough to break her from her thoughts. “Pay attention, little one.”

“To what?” She looks back at him as if trapped in a dream. She isn’t shivering anymore.

“To what, _sir._”

“To what, sir?”

He slides his palm down the taut lines of her stomach. “To me.” His fingers slip under the elastic of her panties, curl themselves in the downy hair between her hips. Dasha closes her eyes, lets her body lean back into him the way it wants to, the way it’s been trying to all night. “Is there something you want, Dasha?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

Dasha’s eyes fly open. A man on her committee once described her dissertation proposal as pornographic. _Lurid, _he’d told her from across his desk, _unnecessarily graphic. _She hadn’t shied away. She never did back then. Watching the worst films, the most disgusting, most bloody, all fantastically perverse. And yet, now, here, she stutters like a teenager. “I…”

“You what?”

“I…”

“Tell me what you want or you get nothing at all.” She grabs at his hands, suddenly desperate. He removes himself from her, tsking. “Nothing then.”

“Please.” It comes out a hoarse whisper.

“Good girls follow my rules.” She listens to the sound of his shoes as he walks away. “Good girls speak when spoken to and _then _they get rewards.” She can hear the sound of the divan as he sits down onto it. “You’re not very good at following rules, Dasha, and I am not very patient.” His admonishment hits close to the bone and maybe he can sense that, maybe there’s something in her body that tells him that, because when he speaks again, his voice is softer. “Turn around, Dasha.” She does as she’s told. He’s got his ankle perched on the opposite knee, watching her intently. “Bad behavior necessitates punishment, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then come here.” She hesitates for only a moment before taking his outstretched hand. She yelps a little when he pulls her over his lap, but he ignores the sound. The way he’s arranged her is just uncomfortable enough to keep her focused on it. She can’t find purchase with her feet or her hands and can’t quite figure out where to lay her head. She wriggles against him.

He strokes down her spine. “_Easy_.” She takes a long, shaky breath in and on the exhale, he spanks her.

The first hit is more of a warning shot really, but it’s loud and Dasha jolts, digging her nails into his pants. “Oh maker.” She fucked a boy in college who used to spank her. He looked like Armie Hammer, wore jeans he cuffed at the ankle. He liked photography, liked especially to take pictures of Dasha with her clothes, off. He liked to spank her but hated it when she asked him too. Josie wouldn’t let him into their dorm.

The second hit is hard. Really hard, like he knows she’s not paying attention. And maker does the intensity of it make her want to get fucked. An almost animal instinct. Fucked stupid. Fucked until she’s screaming. She wants to be fucking consumed. “Please, oh fuck, please.”

“Oh? You want more? Not much of a punishment if you like it so much.” He soothes her ass with his palm. “How much do you like this, Dasha?” She just whines. “Oh no, my sweet girl. Have we not learned our lesson? You have to tell me what you want or you get-“

“No, please!” She tries to push herself up, but his forearm keeps her firm across his lap. “Please don’t stop, please.”

He tsks, but spanks her again. “You’re a bit of a brat, do you know that?” He lands another hit in the same spot and it sucks all the window out of her. “So demanding.” Another. “So needy.” Dasha shouts at the next hit, holding onto his pant leg for dear life. “But pretty,” he decides, soothing her skin again, “especially when you beg.” So she does, like she’s never done in her life. A truly impressive stream of pleading and writhing and when she’s done her mouth feels soft and numb. Her body pliable and easy.

She’s still holding tightly to him and the room seems bigger somehow, like they’re somewhere different than when they started. He slips a hand between her legs, rubbing the soft fabric of her panties. “You’re so wet.” She cans her hips back toward him. “So wet for me. How long has it been, Dasha?”

He presses a finger inside. Then another. “Oh shit.” She groans, rocking back against his hand. He has long, dexterous fingers and they feel ravenous inside of her.

His voice is suddenly heavy with want. “How long since you’ve been fucked.”

“So long.” Her hands curl into fists, holding tightly onto his pants leg. “Please, oh my god.” He picks up the pace. She can’t think. Her brain is like a wind tunnel. Just sensation, white noise. But when he presses his thumb against her clit, she tenses. “Wait, I…” She’s slammed back into herself, all of the sharp edges this year has given her. He stops, fingers still inside of her. “It takes me forever to…I just, you don’t really have to…”

He starts again, slowly, rhythmically. “I can’t imagine what I would have done to give you the impression that I’m anything but thorough.” 

“I’m sorry, I just don’t want to make you-”

“That’s enough.” His tone brokers no argument and Dasha’s mouth snaps shut. He shifts her body so her ass is higher up and starts to move inside of her again. Dasha is forced to contemplate, in that moment, the sudden very clear difference between getting fingered and getting finger fucked. His other hand wraps around her thigh and squeezes. “That’s my good girl.” Her body unclenches. She leans her head against his thigh and takes it.

When Dasha comes, she feels like she’s falling. The ground seems suddenly very close and she reaches out in front of her, fully expecting to crash into it. He’s still there though and it’s a surprise, like she really did expect to come crashing back to Earth alone. He flips her upright and the world goes sideways, but he’s got her, holding her against his chest. They’re on the floor, but Dasha can’t remember how they got there. He’s saying something soft to her, but it’s hard to hear him and only when he brushes her hair from her forehead that the world starts to come back into focus. “Everything’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” she finally manages, “I’m totally fine.” Her teeth are chattering.” 

“Yes, of course.” He just keeps stroking her hair and Dasha feels like she’s on the verge of tears. She’d rather he have left her by herself in the dark. His tenderness feels exposing. “I have you. You’re alright.” He groans as he stands, taking her up in his arms. She feels incredibly high up, but the movement soothes something inside of her. Everything feels the right temperature, the rooms seems brighter. She wonders, vaguely, if it’s morning. He sets her gently down on the divan and pulls a blanket around her shoulders. She isn’t sure where he got it from.

Dasha feels hollowed out like she had after the funeral, but this time it feels faintly cathartic. Her chest isn’t as tight. The smooth stone of her grief less heavy. He settles in beside her, as watchful as he’s been all night. He looks a little older than she first clocked him for, maybe mid-forties. But he looks good. In shape. He smiles at her and the lines the crease around his eyes make him look gentle. Hardly the man who’d just beaten her into submission. He tucks the blanket a little tighter around her and Dasha realizes that she’s still shivering violently. “I’m sorry.” She reaches up to hold the blanket in place herself. “I’m so sorry. I don’t really know…” She trails off as another tremor rolls through her. “I don’t know why I can’t stop shaking.”

He tucks her hair behind her ears. “This is not an uncommon reaction.”

“Oh,” she says blandly. They sit like that for a while, facing each other, not speaking, his fingers just strumming through her hair, and eventually, the shivering subsides.

He shifts in his seat and Dasha catches sight of his cock straining against his slacks. She glances up at him. “Do you want me to..?”

He chuckles, stroking her cheek. “No, that’s quite alright.” His smile is the warmest thing she’s ever seen. “But nice of you to ask.”

He untangles himself and gets to his feet, heading toward where they’d come in. Dasha watches the wiry expanse of his back twist as he stretches his arms, rolls his shoulders. “You need to eat something. And you need water.” He pauses at the door. “Any allergies?”

“What?”

“Food allergies. Dietary restrictions.”

“Oh, uh, no.” She doesn’t tell him that whatever he brings her, she probably won’t eat, figures she’ll find some way to weasel out of it.

He turns to look at her and emphasizes each word. “I’ll be right back.”

Dasha expects a flood when he goes, expects her brain to descend on her like a pack of angry dogs, but as she leans back into the couch her whole body just releases. She sinks into the divan, closes her eyes, basks in the kind of smooth nothing she’s not sure she’s ever felt.

When he returns, she’s nearly asleep, head lolling back on the cushions. He jostles her gently awake, glass of water in one hand, apple tucked under his arm. He’s rolled up the sleeves of his shirt so he looks like a businessman after a day of work. She blinks herself back to reality and takes the room in. It looks innocuous now, with the lights on. Just a room. “Is this, like, your place?”

He hands her the apple and nods for her to start eating. “This room?” He shrugs, glancing around it. “More or less.” He settles down beside her again, runs a lock of her hair absently through his fingers. “You’re very beautiful.” The compliment falls heavy in the bright lights and she flinches. He clicks his tongue. “Surely I’m not the first man to tell you that.” He holds out the glass of water. “Drink.”

She does, avoiding his eyes. “So, um, I guess this is it, right? I should probably go.” She finishes the glass, then quickly adds. “Sir.”

“Solas. And you don’t need to go yet.”

Dasha examines the apple. She does the math, suddenly very aware that she isn’t totally sure how many calories were in her drink. He’s watching her carefully and she quickly takes a bite, lets it sit for too long on her tongue. “Okay, Solas then. Should I…stay here?

“How do you feel?”

“Um.”

“Do you feel lightheaded or nauseous? Anxious?”

“No.” And for the first time in a long time, it’s honest.

“That’s good. I’m going to give you my phone number alright? If you start to feel strange in the next few days, I’d like you to let me know. We can meet in a public place. discuss it, work through it.”

It feels like a letdown. Weirdly like a breakup. Dasha sits a little straighter, shoring herself up “Right, okay, yeah, I can do that. So, um, then I guess it was nice meeting you.”

He narrows his eyes at her. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to take her apart, piece by piece. “I’m sure I’ll see you at another party.” Dasha cocks her head at him. “Here at the club.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay. And those happen, uh, frequently?”

“Every few months.”  
“Every few months, right.” She rubs her arms. “Well, then, so I guess, I should, uh…”

“If you have a moment.” Dasha freezes. “I have a proposition for you.” He’s staring up at the ceiling, hands clasped in his lap. When she says nothing, he turns to look at her. “You seemed to enjoy yourself.” Dasha doesn’t really know what to say, sits back down on the divan and just watches him. “I certainly did.” He has a wistful little smile. “ This is something I’d like to continue, if you’re interested.” 

Dasha works the apple with her teeth, buying herself time. Her hands are tingly like they’re asleep and her chest feels tight like before the club, but everything he’s saying skims the warm surface of her brain. She’s behind glass, staring out at herself. Her thoughts don’t have traction. They slip past her easily. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“A more formal relationship. A continuation of what we had tonight but…” he pauses, thinking, nodding finally when he finds the right words. “more extensive. With more rules.”

“More rules.” She parrots him because her own thoughts are winding slowly, slowly back to life.

“We would draw up a contract. A formal thing. Not legally binding, of course.” He turns to face her on the couch, resting his head on his hand. “Decide what you want, what I think you need. How and when this dynamic would exist.”

“This dynamic.” She starts to chew on the skin beside her nail and, just softly, he takes her fingers from her mouth, straightens them out with his own. “Right, well, I really can’t afford something, um, like that with you. I don’t know exactly how much you charge normally, but my financial situation isn’t really…” She stutters. All the blood feels like it’s rushing back into her body at once and she wriggles out of the blanket, suddenly hot.

“You wouldn’t pay me.”

“Oh.”

“Is that something you’d be interested in?”

Her whole body thrums. “Okay.” It’s out of her mouth before she has the chance to even think about it.

He laughs. “I’m going to need a little more enthusiasm than that.”

“I’m sorry, I just…“

He takes both of her hands in his. “Don’t apologize, please. Take some time to think about it. I won’t be offended if you’re not interested.” 

"What would it even entail?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Us. But it would be a serious commitment either way.”

She pulls her hands out of his. If she keeps them there, warm in his grip, she’s afraid she might fall asleep, might never leave. “Like what kind of serious? I’m sorry, I literally just have no idea what this would even look like. Like would I just come here to fuck or?”

He chuckles. “No, it’s a little more complicated than that. I’d like to take care of you, Dasha.”

She snorts, feeling like herself for the first time since she got here. “Wait, what?”

He has a patient smile and Dasha wonders if he’s a teacher, or a librarian, or, maker, what if this is his full-time job? “Am I wrong in assuming you might like to have someone take care of you?”

She jolts at the accusation. “I’m not sure.” She is sure though.. She’s more sure about this than anything else in this makerforsaken year. It’s uniquely terrifying how sure she is. But then she’s feeling strange all over again. Suspicious. “What would you even get out of something like that?”

He smiles again, that warm, nice smile. “Very much indeed.” He taps the glass in her hand. “Drink more water, please.” Dasha stares at the glass like she’s seeing it for the first time, then back up at him. She can’t remember if she’s had any water today, other than this and the faint headache she’s had since morning returns full force. Josie told Dasha once that if she was a house plant, she’d be dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dasha starts to have second thoughts and wonders if she'll ever be able to escape what she's left behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I have been really thrilled about the reception of this so far! So thank you for reading! I just want to remind everybody to mind the tags. This definitely isn't Dead Dove: Do Not Eat territory (like at all), but it does deal with eating disorders and grief and I know that might be triggering for some people.

Zevran’s nursing a drink when Dasha finds him. It’s neon colored, thick as sludge. Her teeth zing just looking at it and he’s holding onto it so tight that his knuckles are white. Even from across the club she can see that he’s a little fucked up. His hair hangs limply around his shoulders, it’s maybe even a little wet and he can’t seem to stand still, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

The club’s a different animal now. Someone’s turned the music down so low that Dasha can feel the reverb in the floor, but not the melody. The lights are up, the neon off. Only a few people still linger at the bar. The bartender’s scrolling through his phone, the burly bouncer’s wearing a sweater now, sitting on a stool near Zevran, sipping some water. The lounges she passes are empty, all remnants of the night before simply gone.

Dasha feels strangely out of place in the sudden clean neatness of the club. She knows her hair’s a little wild, her makeup rubbed clean off her face. Her dress is rumbled despite Solas’ best attempts to smooth it out once she’d put it back on. He’d apologized, almost sheepish, telling her with a laugh that he was usually better about taking care of client’s things. _Clients. _The word is stuck like a burr in her mind, filling her with a kind of humiliation that is nothing like the erotic discipline she’d been on the receiving end of only a few hours before. Though, if pressed, she’s not sure she’d be able to place exactly why. He’d made sure to write his personal cell phone number down on the business card he’d given her. It was a simple white card. Matte. Just his name, the name of the club. And then that number scrawled in neat hand at the bottom. Dasha was too numbed out for small talk, for niceties, and had just stared at him. Later she’ll remember the way he hesitated as he wrote the number down, wavered a little before tucking it into the front pocket of her purse. But for now, in the middle of the club, she’s just trying to pull herself together. She doesn’t want to give Zevran an inch, not when she’s the closest she’s been to crying since the funeral. Even if the tears threatening at the corners of her eyes feel closer to relief than sadness.

Zevran finally catches sight of Dasha when she rounds the bar. He slams his drink down on the counter with a jaunty laugh. “My girl!” He pulls her into a tight hug. “Shit! You’ve always been such a goddamn overachiever and here I thought you were gonna fucking bolt.”

Dasha extracts herself from the hug and nudges Zev toward the front door. “Yeah, well, guess not.” Seeing Zevran again feels, honestly, like shit. She’d felt a tangle of emotions in that room, but hadn’t realized how steady it had all made her feel until the feeling starts to rapidly retreat beside Zevran. The solid ground she’s firmly back on feels harsh.

“Guess motherfucking not. You showed me.” Zevran’s hands are shaking, really fucking trembling. He catches Dasha looking, but waves her off. “Had a hell of a night myself, dude.” They slip out onto the street, hazy now in the early morning light. The sun is just rising over the buildings, rays of crystalline light filtering across the sidewalk, and a cool breeze rolls down the street, chasing away any memory of the warm night they’ve just left. “Wish the weather would fucking pick one.” Zevran huffs, crossing his arms over his chest, bent like an old man. He’s sweating though, beads of moisture glistening on his neck, like he’s feverish. Dasha knows better than to ask. 

With silent understanding, they slip into a bodega on the way to the station. The fluorescence hurts her eyes and the buzzing from the lights fuels her already growing headache. Her shoes stick to the floor as she follows Zevran to the back. “I don’t really know all that much about the guy you went with.” He says over his shoulder. “But he’s been in the scene a long time. Like decades, I think. Has a good reputation.” He spins around, walking backwards, a shit eating grin plastered on his face. “You had it easy last night. You could have ended up in the basement as someone’s toilet pig.”

Dasha scrunches up her nose, but says nothing. She runs her thumb over the pointed edge of Solas’ card and heads over to the far corner of the store to pour herself some coffee. She tries to ignore the old grinds crusted on the lip of the pot. The coffee smells brutally acidic and the color makes her wonder unpleasantly whether “toilet pig” is exactly what it sounds like. She drinks it anyway. Zevran tucks a breakfast sandwich into his jacket pocket and Dasha pretends not to notice that he’s not gonna pay for it. 

Back outside, Dasha has to shield her eyes from the now blaring sun. She looks back across the street at the club. It looks even more benign in the daytime. “He, uh, wants to start a relationship with me.” She glances at Zevran. “Or something.”

Zevran stumbles to a stop. He turns slowly to look at her and Dasha starts to feel a creeping sense of unease. “Are you fucking joking?”

“What? Is that bad?” They tuck down the stairs into the station and Dasha’s eyes dart around. She’s half expecting Solas to appear, quickly realizing that she knows nothing about him. No idea where he lives, where he works, where she might risk seeing him. She realizes with a jolt that while he’d been inside of her, she hadn’t even seen him without a shirt on.

“No, just sort of unexpected, I guess.” Zevran’s talking between bites, dribbling crumbs and yolk onto the concrete. “You’re not in the scene is all and like…I don’t know. That’s not usually how these sorts of things start.”

She glances up at him. One strap of her dress slips down her arm. She quickly slides it back up. “Should I be worried?”

Zevran shrugs. “Nah, I wouldn’t be.”

Dasha crosses her arms, looking out at the empty tracks. There’s an ad for Burger King on the opposite wall. She scowls at it. “Huh.” Her brain is still miles behind her. The two fidget in the cold as they wait.

The train’s pretty much empty when they get on and once they’re sitting at the far end of the car, Zevran starts the conversation again like they’d never let it drop. “So what did he say?”

Dasha drains her coffee and tucks the cup under her seat. The apple is sloshing around in her otherwise empty stomach and she knows the caffeine is gonna hit her like a freight train. “Not all that much, actually. Wants me to think about it, get back to him.”

Zevran snorts. “Josie’ll flip.” Dasha grimaces. Exhaustion is rolling over her in a steady wave and she holds tightly to the edge of her seat to keep herself upright. Everything is so bright and the train seems to be rocking more than usual. Dasha urps, worried suddenly that she’s gonna be sick right here in the car. Maker, that would be foul. Booze and coffee and hard bits of apple. It would burn something awful on the way up. “So did you fuck?’

Dasha blinks Zev back into focus. Her stomach settles. “Um, no, not exactly. I came though, so…” She breathes hard, feeling the rumbles of that trembling start to rise up in her again. “He’s handsome.” She runs her hands along her bare thighs. “Really handsome.” She finds the card again, tucked in Josie’s purse, and resists the urge to worry it into a hundred pieces. “I think I cried.” It comes out in a rush confession. “Or like…I’m not sure. I sort of freaked out afterwards.”

“Aw.”

“Stop. That’s weird, right?”

“Nah.” Zevran offers her a bite of his sandwich. The yolk is running down the side of his hand. Dasha shakes her head, swallows some of the bile that’s been sitting in her throat. “I cried my first time.”

She eyes him. “How long have you been doing this?”

He shrugs, “Senior year of college.”

“Really?” She stares at her hands. They look small and narrow and not at all like her hands. She doesn’t really have the space to think about college. Not now when all she wants is to sleep, to get the fuck off this train. She looks hard at her knees. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t spreading it around.” Zevran clears his throat. “So…do you think you’ll say yes.”

“I’m not sure.” She sits up and shrugs. “I liked him. I felt…good. I still feel good, I guess. Safe.” She flinches. “Weirdly.” The card is suddenly burning a hole in her purse.

“That’s good, dude. You need some of that.”

Dasha sneers. “I mean, I guess. I’m doing fine.” She swallows hard. “Obviously.” He doesn’t answer, just scrolls through his phone. She opens her own, checks the time. Maker, it’s nearly five am. And she has sixteen missed calls. All from Josie.

They meet at a café in Kip’s Bay. Close to Josie’s work, far from any place Dasha wants to be. It’s too close to NYU and the idea of running into an old professor or, hell, anyone from college is mortifying. But Josie was a nightmare on the phone and Dasha didn’t want to give her any other reasons to be upset.

The place is all white tile and glass and roaming, leafy greenery. Dasha, at least, doesn’t feel completely out of place. She still hasn’t had any sleep, or anything much to eat, but she managed to shower. Threw on some jeans and a sweater. To anyone else, she probably looks fine, but Josie will sniff her out right away. The café’s glass front door dings. _Speak of the blight._

Josie slips the door, making a beeline for their table. The people she passes probably don’t think she’s furious, but Dasha can see a muscle jumping in her jaw. She’s livid. 

She sits across from Dasha , spreads her hands wide on the table, and closes her eyes. When she opens them again her pupils are blown wide. “I was like…two hours from calling the police.” Josie looks older when she dresses for work. There’s something about the skirt suits and square heels that make her look stiff and rigid. Her hair is scraped back into a bun, all those bouncing curls snuffed out with a comb and a heavy coating of gel. She’s painted her long nails an almost fluorescent lime green and Dasha wonders if the people at her work wonder about that, wonder if that means she’s got a secret. Now those nails are tapping so insistently on the table that they’re leaving little half-moon indents in the wood. “I’m so pissed at you I can’t even see straight. I thought you were dead. Someone could have killed you.” Josie is not talking about Solas. Or Zevran. She isn’t thinking about the club, about the night before. Dasha knows this without having to ask. They’re still trapped in this blip in time, a sunny morning in Los Angeles five weeks ago. Josie screaming on the other end of the phone. It won’t let them go.

“I know, I’m sorry. I meant to call, I did.” Dasha reaches for Josie’s hand and she lets her take it. “I lost track of time. And I didn’t have my phone on me for some of it, because…” She trails off, watches a pair of birds swirl in the breeze outside.

Josie snaps her fingers to get Dasha’s attention, then spreads marmalade on the biscuit Dasha ordered her with the kind of violence usually reserved for her own family. “Don’t do that shit again.”

Dasha snorts, just tired enough to be indignant. “Yeah, sure thing, mom.”

Josie goes rigid. “This is not a joke. I am not fucking joking. Your decision making is just so-“ 

Dasha slams her coffee cup down on the table, the ceramic clatter silences the table beside them. Wow, okay, I really don’t need this.” Dasha crosses her arms. If Josie brings up her program, she’s going to just get up and leave. “Let’s save the low blows for another time, yeah?”

To her surprise, Josie demurs. “Right, of course. Of course not. Sorry, I’m still mentally at work. We just got out of this meeting and…I got scared. I’m sorry. I’m not blaming you. I’m just…”

“You’re just what?”

“Worried. I worry.” She eats the biscuit in two bites and Dasha watches her with barely veiled disgust. And longing. And bitter jealousy. “Sorry.” She says with the kind of finality that makes Dasha think she really won’t bring it up again. “Did you at least have some fun?”

Dasha sips her coffee, stalling. She ordered herself a scone but there’s something about the glaze on the top that makes her feel strange, so she doesn’t touch it. “I don’t know if fun is the word exactly. It was hot, really hot actually, and…I don’t know, it was interesting.”

Josie raises her eyebrow. “So, you did fuck someone then?”

“Yes. I mean, no. No really. He didn’t actually _fuck _me. He just like made me cum.”

Josie snorts. “Oh, just that huh?”

Dasha smirks back. They can do this, skim the surface. It’s good. Normal. “It wasn’t like a hookup though. It was a scene. That’s what Zevran called it. There was a lot of talking.”

Josie frowns. “Talking? Weird. Is that like a BDSM thing or something?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She’s not going to elaborate. Josie would combust.

Josie shrugs, sipping her coffee. “Sure, alright. Was he cute?”

“Yeah, very handsome.” Dasha picks at her scone, crumbling it between her fingers. “I think I’m gonna continue with him.”

Josie sits straight as a board. “What the hell does that mean?”

Maker, she should have expected this, but somehow her reaction takes Dasha by surprise. “It’s like an arrangement. I don’t know.” She tries to keep herself from stuttering. “We’d talk about it first. He just asked me if I…wanted to do it again.” ”

“You’re not actually considering saying yes to that, are you? To this _stranger_?”

Dasha bristles. “I mean I was entertaining the idea, yes.”

Josie looks her square in the face. “Have you lost your mind?”

Dasha watches Josie disappear down towards upper Manhattan. She’d been called back to work, left with a promise to hash this out when they both got home and a reminder that Dasha promised to come with her to her parents’ banquet on Sunday. Dasha’s too exhausted to process any part of the conversation they’ve just had.

Alone on the sidewalk, she takes his card out. She looks at it like it might tell her something, turns it over and over in her fingers until the corners are rounded. She puts his number into her phone, debates on what she should call him. Decides Solas is fine. Remembers the way he said _client _and decides against other flourish. Wonders briefly if that’s his real name. Her fingers hover over her screen. She types out a hundred messages to him in her head. She types nothing into her phone. She pockets it, goes off in search of another coffee, something to settle her rumbling stomach.

A storm has moved in by the time Dasha gets back to Josie’s apartment and the sky is so dark it feels like nighttime. She feels blindly down the darkened hallway, only exhaling when she shuts the door to her room. The silence is sacred, the darkness even more so. She weaves around piles of clothes and empty boxes until her feet bump against the side of her mattress and she flops down onto it. She should probably get some sheets, remembers the feeling of Solas’ cotton dress shirt against her skin. Flushes wild and hot at the memory.

Dasha fumbles for her computer, intent on masturbating some of this energy out, sitting up once she finds it. The blue light from her laptop fills the room with an eerie glow. Her email’s up, though she doesn’t remember checking it and the first thing in her inbox makes her breath catch.

From: Annette Roberts <aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu>

To: Darya Lavellan <[dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu)>

Subject: leave of absence

While, during our last (very rushed) conversation, you advised me that you are “quitting”, I have taken the liberty of informing the DGS that you have taken a leave of absence. This way you won’t have to reapply when you return.

Please respond to this email, Dasha.

-A

Dasha slams her laptop shut. All the light rushes from the room and, in the darkness, her heart is loud. She lays back on her bare mattress and closes her eyes. “Bitch.” She whispers to the ether. And then she starts to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dasha makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. I know we’ve been skirting around Dasha’s eating disorder in the previous chapters, but we aren’t skirting here. There are graphic depictions of eating disordered behavior in this chapter. Please take care of yourselves <3

There’s something about driving out of the city. Or riding, rather. Sitting in the backseat, watching the Brooklyn Bridge shrink and shrink, then fade away. Dasha likes to let someone else take the wheel. Always has.

The crowded loneliness of the Northern State Parkway has always made Dasha feel a certain peaceful melancholy. Like time is passing easily, just at the right tempo. Like she’s one salmon in a whole, dense stream of them. Dasha’s got her face pressed to the window, her legs crossed on the seat. It’s nice to just settle her hands there in her lap. She feels small, safe in this sea of traffic. It’s easy not to think in the car’s liminal space. Dasha looks down the lines of cars, trying to imagine where they’re all going, what the drivers must be like. In her imagination, they’re all happier than her, safer than her. They’ve got their whole lives figured out, their worries so easy, so short term. She closes her eyes.

The windows are half down. Sweet, warm air blowing across her face. Josie’s got NPR on the radio and even though all the news is bad that soft, radio voice is soothing all the same. Every so often Varric will start to orate, mocking the announcers and it’s so funny, so absolutely stupid, that he’s got even Josie laughing.

He got in late the night before, rolled into town like he hadn’t even been gone at all. Just his presence easing the tension hanging so palpably in the apartment. He’d regaled them with tales from his European book tour, drinking all the wine Josie’d kept gathering dust in her kitchen. Dasha has always envied the way Varric could smooth things over like that. Zevran could do it, but it always felt like a betrayal. Varric gave things their due. 

They’re just merging onto the Long Island Turnpike when Varric starts to grumble. “I hate the Hamptons,” he says, huffing.

Dasha smiles despite herself. She leans forward, resting her chin on the seat, one hand dangling over. “You hate everything.”

He kisses her knuckles. “Not you, Peaches.”

Maker, it’s nice to have him back. And as far as Varric’s nicknames go, she really can’t complain. He came up with it after an absolutely fucked night in college when Dasha drank, and later puked, an entire bottle of peach schnapps. The scent had lingered in her hair and under her fingernails for days. Sera had teased her relentlessly about it. Dasha closes her eyes again. She doesn’t want to think about Sera. She listens to the sound of the traffic as it rushes by.

Josie takes the exit a little too hard, tittering nervously about whether or not the dilapidated little gas station coming quickly into the view will have premium, idling the car before rushing out to take a look. Varric taps Dasha’s hand. “Come in with me, yeah?”

“What for?”

“Quality time.”

Dasha snorts, rolling her eyes, but she unfolds herself from the seat and steps outside. Upstate’s always felt a little spooky to her, though in different ways. The Hamptons have a simmering unease, evoking scenes of leggy women in blood-specked white running screaming across well-manicured lawns. The places off the Turnpike though, have an almost scarecrow-y feeling. This place is no different. Some of the trees along the road are still bare, their spindly fingers reaching toward the afternoon sky. Dasha’s sundress flutters in the warm breeze. The air here smells like tall, dry grass, faintly like gasoline

She falls in step with Varric, another wave of nostalgia settling over her. This one, at least, doesn’t hurt. He’s about a head shorter than her. Tightly muscled, though his stomach’s looking a little softer these days, built like a little tank. Charming enough that it never really seemed to matter much. He’s grown out his gingery hair since she last saw him, has it pulled up into a bun at the nape of his neck. “So quality time, huh?”

“Figured we both deserved a break.” Dasha glances back at Josie. She’s talking on the phone by the gas pump, clearly agitated. Even on her best days, these family parties always got to her. And these are far from her best days “Besides, wanted a snack.”

She looks down at him. “Do you not remember how much food they have at these things?”   
He chuckles. “Sure, sure, but haven’t you ever heard of a pregame, Peaches?”

The door dings as they walk inside and Varric immediately makes a beeline for the bathrooms, leaving Joni stranded. The bored teenager behind the counter glances up at her, then back at his phone. Dasha catches a whiff of floor cleaner and cooking grease, the sickly smell of processed sweets. It’s overwhelming. All this food, all these bright colors. It didn’t use to be like this. It didn’t use to be this hard.

She opens her phone. Scrolls through her contacts like she’s in a trance, stopping only when she finds his name. Her thumb hovers over it. It’s been two days since that night, but Dasha has no idea if that’s a long time or no time at all. No idea if he even wants her to message him or was just being polite. Her stomach clenches when she thinks that he might not even remember her. Mostly she’s just been trying to forget about the whole thing. Anytime she thinks of that night she’s overcome by humiliation and longing in equal measure.

Varric tosses her a bag of chex mix, pulling her hard out of her thoughts. She barely catches it. “What’s on your mind, Peaches?”

Dasha tucks her phone back in her bag, setting the chip bag down on the closest shelf. “Nothing much.”

Varric gives her a look and opens his mouth to say something else when Josie bursts into the station. “Hello! Guys! We’re already late.” Dasha and Varric exchange glances.

It’s evening when they arrive, pulling into the Montilyet’s wide circular drive. They weave through half a dozen parked cars. The house is lit like a paper lantern. An imposing white wood colonial. It’s bigger than any house has the right to be, but when Dasha closes her eyes, she can wander its halls by heart. So many spring breaks here, so many Thanksgivings. Whole summers. When she steps out of the car, she can smell the salt of the bay, the sweet scent of the flower boxes along the porch.

Josie makes a beeline for the trunk, her jaw tight, hands curled in fists. When she’s out of earshot, Varric saunters over, a glitteringly mischievous look in his eyes. “So, a sex club huh? I’m not often surprised, but hoo girl, I have to say, you surprised me.”

Dasha quirks an eyebrow at him. “So you _do _read my messages then.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, well.” He tucks his hands into his pockets, surveying the crowd on the porch. “So, gonna give me the details then?”

Dasha follows his gaze. “Maybe not the best place for it.” She smooths out the hem of her dress. It’s a gauzy, summery fabric. Still too thin even for the warming weather. “How long are you in town, anyway?”

“Forever and no time at all. You know how New York is.” They walk toward the open trunk. “You busy much these days? Let me take you out to eat. We can go over all the gory details. I’ve been dying for those dumplings down in Flushing. The ones drenched in chili oil, you know?”

“You’ll pencil me in?” Dasha teases, leaning down to grab one of Josie’s Tupperware.

“Don’t need to, Peaches. You’re the whole agenda.” It feels nice to smile, nice to be cocooned here with him. She reaches out to ruffle his hair. They head up the path together, arms full. Passing meticulously groomed topiary, skirting around the great, gurgling fountain in the center of the drive.

Dasha takes a deep breath at the bottom of the porch steps. She takes them two at a time, doesn’t look at any of the people gathered around. It’s been so long since she’s been out here, since she’s seen Josie’s family. Definitely not since before the funeral. Josie’s mother had called her a few days after Sera’s death. Dasha had just left the hospital, come back to their empty apartment. Josie’s mother seemed genuine, but the conversation had been so halting, so strained, that when they hung up, Dasha felt like she was the one who needed to apologize, like _she _was the one who messed up

She doesn’t want to talk about Sera with them in person. Doesn’t want their weird sympathy, feigned or not. And, hell, she’d bet Josie hasn’t told them anything about why Dasha’s back in New York. If she has to pretend she’s still at UCLA, she’ll probably start crying.

Josie’s mother spots her right away but, thank the maker, she’s otherwise occupied. She presses a wet kiss to Dasha’s cheek then flits away. Josie’s father is already red-faced drunk and orating out in the sitting room. Josie too has already been caught in the net. Diplomats by the looks of them. She gives Dasha a helpless look from across the room that Dasha tries to return with an encouraging smile. But she’s already feeling in over her head. The last Montilyet party she’d been to was the summer before. She’d just returned from a year in Prague and Rome. _Funded by Fulbright, _Josie’s mother had bragged when she introduced Dasha to her friends. Felt good in the sun.

This year, what? Dasha pours herself a glass from the punchbowl, then one for Varric. She says a little prayer that this thing will pack a punch. It burns on the way down. Little victories. She takes Varric by the elbow and the two of them head toward the backyard.

Dasha slides open the glass door and steps onto the terrace. It’s quieter out here, only a few people mingling around the wicker furniture. Strings of lights bob in the breeze. The reflecting pool bisects the lawn like a black maw.

Dasha toes off her heels and savors the feeling of the grass under her feet. Dimpled, cerulean clouds race toward the purpled rays of the setting sun. The colors spill onto the water, placid despite the churning storms that have battered the coast all week. The house, and it’s great, sprawling lawn, seems out of time completely. Layered with memory and yet apart from it. Dasha is 18, keeping watch while Josie breaks into her parent’s liquor cabinet, sure that at any moment Josie will realize that she is a nobody from nowhere New Mexico and revoke their friendship. She’s 20, watching Sera strip down and rush into the bay, Varric at her heels, both of them laughing. She’s 22 and Josie’s mother is toasting her, congratulating her _on a job well done. _The decorations are blue and gold. UCLA’s colors. Her own mother in the corner looking like a deer in the path of a car, surely feeling both out of place and thoroughly usurped, and her heart is swelling with incredible pain and incredible pride. It knocks the wind out of her now, all of these memories.

“So how are you really, Peaches?”

Dasha jolts, crying out. Varric sidles up beside her, hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Maker’s balls, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Jumpy, eh?” He takes a deep breath, inhaling all that crisp, salty air, then glances up at her. “Don’t dodge the question.”

Dasha sighs. “How do you think I am?”

Varric chuckles. “Well, I think you’re desperate enough to let a stranger wail on you for a few hours at a sex club so, I don’t know, maybe I should be worried.”

She wonders if Varric’s been talking to Zevran. If Zevran’s been embellishing that whole night to anyone who’ll listen or if this is just Varric’s usual narrativizing. She figures it doesn’t really matter all that much right now anyway. “Maybe the better question is how you seem to be totally fine. After everything.”

“Well, I’m not.” She glances over at him. He’s looking blankly down at the reflecting pool. “But I keep going. I keep moving it. It makes the pain easier to deal with.” He looks pointedly up at her. “Speaking of: want to tell me what the hell you’re doing here anyway?”

Dasha stiffens. “At this party?”

“No, and don’t play coy. What the hell are you doing back in New York?” Dasha starts to shake her head, fidgeting on her feet. “Don’t you have some work to be doing back on the Golden Coast? Some dissertation to be writing?”

“Not tonight, okay?” 

Varric sighs. “Sure, sure.” He pats her on the arm. “Listen, I saw a guy in there from Random House. My editor with them’s been dodging my emails. We’re trying to get a paperback run of _Swords and Shields._”

“Oh right, the erotica you wrote.” She cocks an eyebrow at him. “What was that about _me _being some kind of sex pervert again?”

“Hey, it’s a _50 Shades _market these days.” He knocks her playfully in the ribs. “Gonna go take a Kamikaze approach with this guy, come rescue me if I’m no back in fifteen minutes.”

Dasha drains her drink. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” He squeezes her arm.

When Varric’s out of sight, Dasha goes out alone to the beach. It’s not far from the lawn, but far enough that the sounds of the party are muted completely. The lights from the house don’t reach out here. She lets the water come to her, shivers as it rushes up to her ankles. The sun hasn’t been out enough this spring to warm it.

She’d never seen water like this before she came to NYU, just miles and miles of desert. The water still feels dangerous, like a foreign thing. She backtracks onto the beach, pebbles smooth and slick under her bare feet. A warm breeze ruffles her hair. It feels like the beginning of summer, that sweet anticipation. So full of possibility. A summer without Sera. The first for the rest of her life. Dasha grimaces, tries to think of something else. Anything else. She holds herself tightly as the breeze plays with her dress. She thinks of Solas. Wonders about him more like. Tries to imagine what he’s doing right now. Where he might be. She imagines the long lines of him, the sharpness of his face. She doesn’t get much further than that though before she realizes that even if she were to agree to his arrangement, she probably still wouldn’t know. Would probably always be at arm’s length. The thought stings more than it should for a stranger.

“A little chilly to be out here, don’t you think?” Dasha jumps, peering into the rising darkness. A woman comes weaving towards her through the grass. Dasha’s seen her before, but can’t place her. An aunt, maybe? A neighbor from another of those enormous houses that line the coast. She has a shawl draped over her narrow shoulders, her long fingers heavy with rings. “Dasha right?” She’s slurring a little and Dasha shores herself, trying to fall back into the polite shadow of herself she has to be out here. A well-trained little animal.

“Yes, sorry. I believe we’ve met, I just, I’m so terrible with names.”

The woman has a slow, foggy smile. “Anne. I live two houses down. You’re the academic, right?”

Dasha swallows, a chill racing up her spine. “I, um, I guess.”

“No, I remember now for sure. UCLA. You got the Fulbright.” The woman winks. “Very impressive.” Dasha’s tongue is a rock in her mouth. She can only stand uselessly as the woman sways on the beach beside her, looking dreamily out at the Bay. “They’re always talking about you in there.” Dasha glances back toward the house. It looms now. It’s windows like a face. “I can see why.” Dasha looks back at the woman. She’d older, fifties maybe, but aging gracefully the way only money can make you. Dasha’s heart pounds in her throat. She feels woozy, like she might tumble into the water, might wash away. A terrible fate for a desert girl. “I know a few people. Kids around here.” The woman waves her hand lazily in the air. “Who gave that a go.” She lowers her voice, whispering like she’s telling her a terrible secret “Couldn’t handle it.” Dasha’s just staring at her now, eyes wide and unblinking. She wants to tell her to shut up. She wants to run. Her mouth is as dead and useless as her feet. The woman emphasizes each word. “Academia weeds out the weak-willed.” She laughs. Dasha can’t manage to. “That’s why, no matter how silly those little left-wing professors get, I will always have a respect for the institution. And look at you.” The woman winks again. “Making something of yourself.” Dasha has nothing to say. She’s gutted, her body rigid and brittle. She glances over at the woman’s plate, noticing it for the first time. She’s got two slices of Josie’s focaccia, big chunks of cheese, and slabs of prosciutto. Smoked fish, a saffron-y rice flecked with raisins and pine nuts. And at the center: a shimmering slice of lemon cake. Dense crumb, glistening with olive oil, toasted almonds crusted on the edge.

A dark, feral hunger rises up inside of her. It fills the space where her pain should be, her grief, her bright, brilliant humiliation. “Where did you get that?” Her voice comes out ragged, desperate.

The woman looks startled, then follows Dasha’s gaze to her plate “Oh inside of course. They’ve just set up the buffet.”

“It was nice talking to you.” Dasha turns on her heels, racing up the grass toward the house.

It starts with the lemon cake. She eats it without tasting it. One slice after the other. The sugar is a jolt. Her body startles and then stars to howl. She can’t stop. There’s a sweet, honey cake on a platter beside it. She eats two slices so quickly that she almost chokes on the last bite. She feels feverish, her jaw sore. All she can see is the buffet table in front of her, the rest of the party has blurred in the background. She grabs a plate, then a second just in case. Ravenous. _Ravenous._ She piles food onto it, not even paying attention to what she’s grabbing, and with a quick glance around her, slips out of the room. Her breath has started to come in ragged gulps and her whole body shakes, desperate to find somewhere to eat all of this. Now. _Now._ She finds an empty stairwell in the back of the house and ducks down into the shadowed parts of it. 

And then she eats. So fast that she chokes, crumbs and pieces of food spilling onto her dress, down her wrists. Her cheeks feel sticky. And then when it’s gone, so quick she can barely believe it, horror fills her. She’s got food on the stair’s runner, sauce dripping from the bottom step onto the tile floor. The room is silent and still. Her heart is so loud. She runs her fingers along her hips, pulling at the skin. Her stomach is too full, heavy and painful, and the feelings she’s been trying to bottle for weeks start to race around her head.

She knows there’s a bathroom just down the hall. She makes a run for it.

Dasha doesn’t turn on the light at first. There’s always a stillness just before. A relief. She stands in the darkness, breathing slowly in and out. She flips the switch.

The mirror gawks at her. She’s covered in crumbs, icing sugar stuck to her cheek, a piece of crust dangling from her lip. She takes two deep breaths, flips the toilet seat up, then starts running the sink.

She used to be louder. Used to have to retch and retch but after Sera’s death, her body streamlined its own destruction. She kneels, two fingers slipping easily into her throat, swallows twice around them and then her stomach turns over. It goes on like that until all she manages is bile. It burns her nostrils.

When she stands her head swims, lights popping in the corners of her eyes, and then the terror sets in. She’s going to die. This time she’s really done it, this time is going to be the last time and Josie’s gonna find her wrapped around the toilet, her lips and fingers black with death. She slumps back to the ground and then she starts to cry. Like a child. Like a wounded animal. Quiet and pathetic. Sniffling as she curls around herself. It used to be cathartic. It isn’t anymore. A sharp pain lingers just under her ribs. It’s a bottomless feeling. The hunger and the way her esophagus burns. Vomit has spilled down the bowl. It’s a dense color, pieces of meat and vegetables mixed in with the bile. She can see parts of that lemon cake and suddenly all she wants in the whole world is to be scooped up, to be held. To be fed. For someone else to figure out what that will mean. Her eyes fall on her purse. She crawls toward it. Her phone is heavy in her hand.

She cleans up the toilet, her face. Rinses her mouth out with water and looks hard at her reflection. She frowns at herself.

Josie’s father has a study down the hallway. It’s quiet like a crypt. A dense chamber of books. A solitary fish tank. She slips inside, shutting the paned glass door as softly as she can. It takes her a long time to find Solas in her contacts, her fingers still shaking. Her heart is pounding so loudly in her ears that she barely hears the first ring and by the third, she can’t stand it. She hangs up, exhaling raggedly, staring at her phone like it’s a wild animal. What the hell is she thinking? What the hell does she think any of this will accomplish?

Josie pops her head into the study and Dasha nearly jumps out of her skin. “Andraste’s tits. Is everyone in this house trying to give me a maker damned heart attack?”

“Maker, you’re jumpy.” Josie slips into the room, smoothing out her dress. “I’ve been looking for you. Where the hell did you go off to?”

“Just needed some air.”

Josie snorts. “Yeah, I get that.” She sighs. “Listen, I’m really sorry. My mom wants to talk to you. About your research.” Dasha groans. “I know, I’m sorry. I tried to stall, but I didn’t know what to tell her.”

Dasha kneads her temples, sighing. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I can make something up.”

“Great.” Josie smiles. “_Great.” _She turns to go, but does a double-take. “You have…” She gestures to her own face, “something in your hair?” Someone calls her name down the hall and Josie looks back apologetically before slipping away. Dasha brings her hand slowly to where Josie pointed. It squelches under her fingertips. She has vomit in her hair.

The ride back is quiet. It’s heavy dark now. Everyone’s tired. Worn out. Dasha’s stomach hurts. Her throat too. She has a pounding headache and knows she needs to drink something that isn’t booze. Maybe she will when she gets home. Drink some water, sit in the bath. A new start. Her phone buzzes in her purse. A text, until it isn’t. She frowns. Who the hell would be calling her this late? She fumbles for it. Nearly drops it when she sees it’s from him. She sits bolt upright, her phoen buzzing in her lap like an insect. Josie glances back. “Someone calling you?”

“Just telemarketers, I think.”

Josie turns her attention back to the road. Dasha lets it go to voicemail, thankful that for once she hasn’t set the damn thing up. At least he won’t know it’s her. Her phone buzzes again and she nearly jumps out of her seat. This time a text. She glances at the backs of Josie and Varric’s heads. They’re chatting softly, not paying attention. She opens it.

Solas: Who is this?

Dasha: No one, sorry.

Solas: Did you mean to call me?

Dasha: Yes, I’m sorry.

She curses. What a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just tell him it was a wrong number?

Solas: No need to be sorry, but I would appreciate being told who this is.

Dasha hesitates. Her phone buzzes again.

Solas: Is this Dasha?

Her heart leaps. 

Dasha: Yes.

And then

Dasha: How did you know?

Varric flips through stations on the radio and Dasha looks up, the car coming back into focus. . She can see Manhattan’s skyscrapers across the overpass, glittering like a gem in the distance. Her phone buzzes again.

Solas: I rarely give my personal number to club patrons but I doubt anyone outside that world would apologize to me quite so much.

Dasha: Sorry.

_Fuck. _

Josie looks at her in the rearview mirror. “Everything good?”

“Yeah, yeah definitely. .”

“Who are you texting?”

Dasha swallows hard. Varric flashes her a meaningful look from the front seat. “Watch the road ruffles, you trying to get us all killed.”

“Maker, sorry.” The car falls into silence again.

Solas: It was meant as a joke. I’m glad to hear from you. Are you alright?

Dasha pauses. What the hell does he mean by that? She flips through the night in her head, trying to remember if she’d seem him. Andraste’s tits, what a nightmare that would be if he was one of Josie’s parent’s friends. She’d really have to throw herself off a bridge then. Maker, what if he’d seen her coming out of the bathroom? Would it even matter? Would he even give a shit? She’s a client, right? One of many. And besides, the likelihood that he was there is infinitesimal. He’s probably just being polite. Her phone buzzes again.

Solas: It’s not uncommon to feel odd several days after a session. Especially your first. How are you?

Dasha fights back the sudden urge to cry. To tell him just how terrible she is, just how thoroughly she’s shattered her own life. But just talking to him has soothed something inside of her. A strange, out of place feeling.

Dasha: I’m fine.

She chews her lip.

Dasha: I wanted to reach out to you about your proposition.

She flinches. Maker, that sounds like the kind of thing she’d write to the editor of an academic journal. Too formal, too detached. Not like she has any idea what she’s even doing. Her brain feels as frazzled as it had the morning after the club.

Solas: I’m happy to hear that.

Dasha: I think I’d like to

She pauses, trying to find the right words.

Dasha: do the relationship thing with you

She curses again, quieter this time. She sounds young. So young.

Solas: Even happier to hear that. In instances such as these, I require that we meet in a neutral location to discuss the details. When are you available?

Dasha almost laughs. What’s the most flattering way to say that she is, in fact, slumming at her friend’s place waiting for the wreckage of her life to stop smoldering.

Dasha: I’m free most afternoons.

Solas: Wonderful. Where do you live?

Solas: You don’t need to tell me your address. Just the borough is fine.

Dasha: Brooklyn

Dasha: But I don’t mind taking the train.

Solas: Why don’t we meet in Midtown? I know a nice café.

Dasha: Sure okay.

Solas: Looking forward to it.

She leans her head back on the seat, letting her phone fall into her lap. She closes her eyes, letting the radio and the soft chatter of her friends settle her leaping heart. She’s gone over the cliff now, but the fall doesn’t feel quite as terrifying. She wonders where he is right now, this elusive man. Wonders if his apartment is big or small. If it’s in the city or on the outskirts. She imagines him at a desk somewhere. In an apartment full of dark wood and old books. She imagines he’s having dinner. His plate is full. In her fantasy, it doesn’t scare her. Her nostrils burn. All she can smell is vomit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas and Dasha come to an agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a lot of classic BDSM fics/novels have this like pleasure in submission component (which I normally really love), but I’m not really all that interested in that for this fic. I want to focus more on both of them leaving their comfort zones. Solas has commitment issues and Dasha is probably literally the worst, brattiest sub in existence. 
> 
> This fic has a permanent tw for eating disordered behaviors.

Dasha’s late. But only because she’s been standing outside the restaurant for nearly fifteen minutes trying to decide whether or not she’s going to bolt. It would be easy enough in New York City, she thinks, to run and never return. She could just duck out of his life. Never see him again. A desperate, anxious feeling rises up inside of her when she thinks like that and she has to forcibly remind herself that she doesn’t know him, that she’s met him once, and that if she fixated on every man who ever made her cum she’d never have time to think about anything else. Well, to be fair, no one’s made her cum quite like he did.

She checks the train schedule on her phone, scrolls back through his messages. She tries to weigh how badly she wants to be around him, this strange pull that she can’t seem to get out from under, against how absolutely terrified she is. They’re about even.

What decides her, finally, is the sudden, humiliating thought that Solas is, perhaps, just inside. That’s he’s been audience to all of this, sitting behind one of the café’s tall front windows. That’s too much to even entertain. Dasha fluffs her hair with her fingers and takes a deep breath. The year they moved to LA, Sera got really into tantric yoga. She was hooking up with her instructor. A long-limbed Nigerian woman with dreads all down her back and colorful tattoos up her arms. They fucked constantly in the apartment, the bedframe groaning, the whole apartment shaking. Their breakup had been as spectacular and loud as their sex life. No matter how it turned out though, the woman had taught Sera about four corner breathing and Sera taught Dasha. So now, as she stands across the street from a coffee shop that has suddenly become the locus of all her terror, she tries to remember how to do it. She imagines all four sides of her chest expanding with her breath. Like a house in an explosion, like from old film reel of nuclear tests, their walls launching away from each other, somehow still in one piece. She wishes her brain would supply a gentler metaphor. It doesn’t. She unclenches her fists, takes another full breath.

The café is unassuming on the outside, its green awning blowing in the warm breeze. A few people sit at the wrought iron tables outside. They’re mostly med school types. She can tell by their expensive shoes and the deep bags under their eyes. The café’s in Midtown, but bumps up against the Upper East Side and the people darting around the sidewalk make her feel especially small, especially useless. Besides, anytime she steps foot in Manhattan, her blood pressure skyrockets. The idea of running into an old professor when she’s here to do _this _makes her feel sick to her stomach. Not that it needs any help with that these days. It growls as if to remind her.

The inside surprises her, hipper than she imagined. It smells sharply of brewing coffee and baking pastry. A big airy space hemmed in by brick walls and exposed piping. Long, untreated wood table and hulking, industrial light fixtures. Dasha fusses with her shirt. It’s an oversized chiffon blouse that she got, maker, years ago now with Sera. She’s tucked it into her high-waisted jeans, borrowed a pair of leather mules from Josie She’s trying to look cool, look effortless, but also like she’s old enough to be here with him. She’s not sure it’s working.

Dasha spots Solas right away. He’s hard to miss, sitting in the far corner nursing a coffee. He looks totally different in the light of days, dressed in fitted jeans and a sweater, but just as striking. The watch, sparkling on his wrist, is the only visual reminder of their night together. She’s relieved to see he’s far away from the windows. He spots her too, waves her over with two fingers.

“I got you a cup of coffee,” he says when she’s in earshot, pushing the mug across the table, “but I wasn’t sure how you took it.”

“Black is fine.” She smiles, stiff beside the chair.

He nods toward her seat and she drops onto it like an obedient dog. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”

“Oh, uh, no. Not at all.” Dasha isn’t prepared to try and make small talk. Whatever she’d imagined, conjured up late last night on the internet, it was nothing like this. None of this warm afternoon light, this easy, casual feeling. It’s scarier than if he’d wrapped both hands around her throat. She takes a breath. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Of course.” Solas takes a long sip of his own, but his eyes never leave her. They’re just as intense as they were that night, even if the rest of him is softer. He’s more handsome in the light of day, or maybe just differently so. A different animal entirely. She feels warm looking at him. There’s something almost paternal in the way he’s sitting, his long fingers tented on the table, a coiled strength wafting off him. “I’m glad it wasn’t hard to find.” He finally takes his eyes off her and looks instead out the café’s tall front windows. The sun has bleached the rest of the world away. Dasha can’t look at it for long. She averts her eyes, noticing, for the first time, a manila folder on the table. She tenses, looking back up at him. “I don’t live far from here,” he says, almost absently, “it’s a good spot. Quiet usually.” He cocks his head, eyes on her again. “Ideal for these kinds of meetings.” She desperately wants to match his sly grin, but her jaw is wired shut. She just looks helplessly at him, like a cornered animal. He breaks their gaze, flipping through the menu on the table. “Are you hungry?”

“Oh.” It comes out like a squeak. Her brain is moving too slowly to process it, but her body understands and clamps shut, every muscle tense. “Are we eating?”

“I thought we might have dinner, yes.” He drums his fingers on the menu. “My treat, of course.”

“Oh wow, thank you. Wow…I…” Dasha trails off. She feels very young and very small and very much like she’s careening off the edge of a cliff.

She looks up at him and maybe her eyes are pleading or maybe he’s noticed the way her fingers have started to tremble, because he leans over the table, speaks to her in a soft, low voice. “Is it alright if I touch you?”

“What?” She recoils at first, her body pulled so taut that touch might snap it. But she softens, drawn again to his stern, unwavering warmth, leaning back toward him. “Um, yeah, that’s fine.” She’s not sure exactly what she expects. For him to grab her by the wrists, maybe, pull her hard across the table. Maybe that’s what she wants.

But instead, he lays his hand so softly over hers that it doesn’t register at first. She stares at it, at him. The coffee shop is hazy around her, just ambient, colorful noise. Solas is rendered in such sharp detail that she notices faint freckles beside his eyes. “You can relax, Dasha. It’s alright.” He rubs his thumb in soft circles along her hand. “If you don’t want to do this, that’s fine. That’s absolutely fine. We can just have dinner and then you can be on your way.”

Dasha isn’t sure which way that would be, can’t see where any path leads anymore. The trailheads in her life have vanished and all she can see now is dense, dark forest. _Something terrible has brushed up against me, _she wants to tell him. Like a fish in dark water, the sensation lingers for hours, days. She wants to tell him that he can’t understand how dark it is where she’s been hiding. That in this first foray back into the sun, everything is too bright.

Or maybe he can understand it. What kind of man lives a life like this? What sort of darkness is roiling inside of him that led them both to sit across this table at a café in Midtown? Dasha looks a little harder at his face, looking for something, _anything, _that she can glean from him that might give her an answer. Movies reveal all the things you need to know if you pay close enough attention, so Dasha tries to pay close enough attention. He has fine wrinkles on the corner of his eyes. A mark of age or a life spent smiling? He has a small scar just above his left eyebrow. How old is it? Where did he get it? His lips curve naturally downward. Her mother used to have a saying about that. What was it? _What was it? _

Maybe he can understand. Maybe that’s why he’s here. And who’s to say either way. She doesn’t know him. _She doesn’t know him. _The coffee shop comes into sudden, glaring clarity. Her thoughts screech to a halt and she yanks her hand away from him. But her mouth carries on, a mind of its own. “I want to do this.” Is that what she’d meant to say? She isn’t sure, but when Solas opens his mouth to respond, she doubles down. “I really do. This is all just so new to me.” She swallows. “I’m nervous.”

Solas sits back in his chair. He’s watching her now with the same intensity she had him. He tents his fingers again and the expression he’s wearing reminds her of her committee at her prelim defense. Revealing nothing, peeling everything away. She bristles. It is, apparently, the right response. He smiles at her, just lightly, no teeth. “It’s alright to be nervous.” He leans forward and taps the menu. “Do you like wine?” Dasha frowns, then nods. She can’t see where this line of questioning will end and it sets her teeth of edge. He flips through the menu. “They have excellent wine here, actually.” He chuckles. “Not really what you’d expect, I suppose.” Dasha narrows her eyes at him, not sure how she should respond. He glances up at her Oh, _oh, _he’s trying to get her to relax. Right. Right, of course. Okay. She releases her shoulders, settling a little more comfortably in the chair. He taps the menu again with one of his long fingers. “This one is quite good if you like red.” Dasha leans over to look, tries to ignore the price.

“Um, alright. Should we get a bottle?”

“Only if you intend to drink a bottle.’  
“You don’t drink?”

He leans back again. “Oh certainly. But I have a meeting in a few hours.” He gets that wry smile again. “Might be in poor form to show up drunk, don’t you think?”

Dasha exhales, even manages to laugh. This is normal. More normal than she expected. Which is, honestly, throwing her for a bit of a loop. She isn’t really sure how much she should be asking him about his personal life. Zevran had been evasive about it and google was even less helpful. But he’s offering, isn’t he? Dasha hedges her bets. “Do you work…in business then?”

He chuckles. “No, nothing so lucrative. I work at Columbia.”

Dasha goes cold. “At Columbia.” Her mind is starting to race and she tries to speak her faint hope into existence. “Are you…administration?”

“A professor.” He takes a long sip of coffee. “Why? Are you familiar with Columbia?”

Fuck, _fuck. _Dasha’s more than fucking familiar. She’d applied to Columbia. Was accepted. They’d fought hard to get her to come. Offering up summer funding, a second department fellowship. She’d very nearly gone. But then Sera had announced she was running off to LA and Dasha followed like a loyal hound. She’d been desperate to be back in the hot sun, the dry air. Afraid too to leave Sera alone. She shrugs. “No, nothing like that. Just heard of it, I guess. Like everybody.” But what if he knows that isn’t true? Her prospective advisor at Columbia still kept in touch. Or did, Dasha reminds herself. Dasha hasn’t responded to an email for six weeks now. But what if they know each other? What if they’re in the same department? She wracks her brain, trying to remember all the faculty profiles she’d scrolled through when she applied, but it comes up empty. Hell, _hell. _“What department?”

He eyes her. “Awfully curious for someone who isn’t familiar.” She bristles and his face softens again into that wise, teasing smile. “But I appreciate your curiosity. I’m in the Classics department.” Dasha exhales. Not Art History. And at UCLA, the classicists had pretty much kept to themselves. “We’re in the process of hiring a new philologist. Or attempting to.” He smiles to himself, then looks back at her. “Thus the meeting.”

“Oh,” is all she can manage. Dasha leans back in her chair. The café is drafty and, outside, a wind has started to pick up. Clouds darken the street. “The weather’s been so crazy.” She whispers, mostly to herself, but Solas nods. Maybe he’s trying to placate her. She feels, suddenly, paper thin. Like the breeze might blow her away. She wants to reach out and hold onto him for dear life. Instead, she takes a deep breath and straightens up. “Too bad about the meeting.” She’d been a graduate liaison on a faculty search once. Remembers the stream of inane, increasingly hostile emails between the committee members that went on well into the night. But he hasn’t asked her anything about herself, for which she is thankful, and decides that if she gives him even an inch, she’ll probably serve him up a whole mile on a platter. “You must be very busy.”

“I am. My schedule and availability for this arrangement is an item we’ll need to discuss.”

Dasha rolls her shoulders. “Right. The arrangement.”

“Yes, the arrangement.” He smiles again, running his fingers around the lip of his coffee cup. Dasha watches them intently. “Should we start?” The air stills around them.

“Yeah, okay.” Dasha shores herself up. “I just, um, I did a little research and, um, I have a couple of questions.”

“By all means.”

Dasha swallows hard. “Okay.” She tries to collect her thoughts. She’d spent the better part of that morning on the internet, falling into deeper, scarier holes with each search. Seen picture after picture of women, bruised, sometimes bloody, strung up nude, men looming along the edges. Women with their mouths open, waiting, makeup smudged all over their blindfolded, tearful faces. She couldn’t even begin to parse the way she felt about it then, had fled to the bathroom to try and collect her thoughts. She’d sat on the edge of the tub until she couldn’t bear to be in the apartment for another second.

In college, Varric used to call her method of coping the “kamikaze approach”. Death wish selfcare. She’d pound energy drinks, Adderall, and stay awake for as long as she could. She’d always tell others that it was so she could work, but in those days, when everything felt so precarious, the quiet hours of the very early morning felt safe in a vital, almost indescribable, way.

Things feel precarious again, worse than precarious and it had been a strange, cyclical relief when she’d found the same off-brand energy drinks at the bodega around the corner from Josie’s apartment. She’d had two for lunch. They’d made her teeth zing and her mouth still feels unpleasantly like it’s coated in a thick film. And apparently it’s made her spacey too, because she only notices her own prolonged silence when Solas clears his throat. She jolts. “You had a question.”

“Right,” she fiddles with the handle on her mug, not meeting his gaze. Dasha glances quickly around the café. There’s no one within earshot. “I guess I just…” she straightens back up, finally looking at him again. He’s still, watchful, chest resting on his hands. “Like I said, I did some research and…is this going to be like some sort of 24/7 situation with the,” she glances around again, “arrangement.”

“_This _isn’t going to be anything if you aren’t in full agreement with it.”

“Right. Yeah.” Dasha starts in on the skin of her thumb. She sees a muscle jump on his jaw, eyes trained to her hands, and it seems to be taking all of his energy to stop himself from reaching across and pulling her hands apart from each other. He’d done that before, hadn’t he? At the club. She wonders why he isn’t now, tucks her hands between her legs.

He sits back again, takes another sip of his coffee. “I’m not interested in a traditional 24/7 dynamic. Whatever you might have found online will likely have little resemblance to the way I usually do things. I won’t involve myself in your friendships, your career. I won’t require you to ask permission for normal, everyday things. Or even more extraordinary things. That’s not particularly interesting to me.” Dasha’s mug is empty, but she pretends to take a sip, trying to hide the way her face has fallen. She can’t help but feel somehow slighted by that even if she doesn’t understand why. “But, if you agree, I would prefer an arrangement beyond simple sexual encounters. I’d like to have daily contact. With previous subs, I’ve been in charge of nutrition, sleep schedule, you get the idea. I find that works well for both of us.”

“Nutrition.” Dasha’s tongue is heavy in her mouth.  
“What you eat.”

Dasha rolls her eyes. “I know what nutrition means.”

“I didn’t have any doubt.” She looks up to find him smirking over the lip of his coffee mug. “I rather like you indignant.” She tries not to blush, scoffing to hide the sudden rush of affection that courses through her. “I’m afraid nutrition is one of my non-negotiables.”

“What would it entail?”

“You’d send me daily reports. Of everything you’ve had to eat or drink. I’ll require you to eat a balanced diet, limit your alcohol intake. Nothing extreme.”

She stares at him, but she knows the clock is ticking. She has to say something and say something soon or she’ll be drawing attention to her discomfort. Dasha takes a deep breath. It’s not like he’s going to weigh her. How hard can it be to fake a daily email? “Okay.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Okay? It doesn’t have to be okay, Dasha.”

She frowns. “It’s fine.” They make hard eye contact. “Really.”

“I need to trust that you’ll tell me if something is making you uncomfortable.” He leans forward, eyes stern. “The very basis of our arrangement is that you trust me to have your best interests in mind.”

“I don’t know you.” It just slips out and she tenses, expecting his anger.

But Solas only smiles. “Good answer. You don’t.” He takes the manila folder that has been looming on the edge of their conversation and sets it in the middle of the table. “Which is why we have rules. And why I have references.”

“References?”

Solas taps the envelope. “Previous subs. They can speak to my demeanor, my expectations. Their experiences with me. You’re welcome to contact them. In fact, I would encourage it.”

She decides immediately that she’s not going to. Just the idea makes her both lividly embarrassed and strangely jealous. Then a realization dawns. “I don’t have any references…for something like this.”

“I know you don’t. It’s always a risk, taking on a sub new to the scene.” He looks thoughtfully away, then back at her, eyes narrowing. “But I’m willing to take a leap of faith.”

Dasha scrunches up her nose. “Why?”

“Because I find you fascinating, Dasha. That’s why.” Heat rushes up her body and she’s sure that she’s lividly red from her cheeks to her chest. Solas clears his throat and flips open the folder. “Shall we start?”

“Yeah, alright.”

He gives her another long, appraising look before clicking his pen and taking out the first paper. He takes a pair of reading glasses out of the pocket of his jeans and the gesture is almost quaint, strangely comforting. The glasses do nothing to diminish the strong lines of his face. “Are you on birth control?”

Dasha straightens up. “Yeah.” She reaches out to take another phantom sip of coffee, but thinks better of it and, not knowing what else to do with her hands, tucks them again between her thighs. “IUD.”

He glances over the rim of his glasses. “Copper?” She nods, feeling suddenly fidgety. “Good. I expect you to always practice safe sex, but, should you find yourself having frequent partners outside of our arrangement, I’ll require you to get tested after every encounter.”

Dasha frowns. “Wait, you’re cool with me fucking other people?”

Solas chuckles. “Of course. I have no plans to discontinue my paid sessions at the club. It would be unfair of me to demand a level of commitment I don’t intend to reciprocate.” He clears his throat again. “Besides, my paid sessions very rarely involve penetrative sex. If they do, I will inform you and provide you with updated test results.”

Dasha lets that sink in, feeling relieved and slighted all at once. “Penetrative sex.” She tries the phrase out. “Huh.” And then it dawns on her. She turns to look at him, flushing deeply. “Wait, will we…”

“Will we what?” He’s teasing her, she knows that, but she can’t relax her muscles enough to tease back.

“Will we have, um, penetrative sex?” Her tongue is like a foreign thing in her mouth. Heavy and useless. Her skin is hot from how brightly she’s blushing. 

He starts to reach out for her, but that muscle in his jaw jumps again and he aborts the attempt, turning back to the folder, mouth tight. He stars a spot on the margin, his voice smooth and even again. “It’s certainly an item to discuss.” He makes a quick note below the paragraph he’d starred. “As I said, penetrative sex is generally not a part of my paid sessions, but I occasionally engage in it with subs involved in these types of arrangements." 

Dasha swallows hard. “So, there are more than just me?” She doesn’t mean for it to sound so stricken, but she hadn’t even considered that she might not be the only one.

He looks up from the paper at her. “Not currently, no.”

“Oh.” It’s a relief and yet… “I mean, do you…”

“Hmmm?” He has the faintest smirk on his lips and Dasha is sure she must be absolutely tomato red now. He leans forward, eyes glittering like a predator. She moves instinctively away, but her hands move toward him, drawn to the rush of adrenaline. He lowers his voice, that rumbling she’d heard only briefly the night in the club. “Are you asking me if I want to?” Dasha peers at him from under her lashes. He cocks her head. “I require verbal answers, Dasha, or have you forgotten?” Her ‘yes’ is so quiet he has her repeat it and when she does, he leans even closer, his breath hot on her ear. “Yes, little one, I want to fuck you.” Dasha gulps, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. “You’re trembling.” His fingers ghost along her jaw. “Now why could that be?” His thumb brushes against her lips and suddenly she’s scrambling for him. She kisses him. Hard. Reaching up to hold his face tightly to hers. Solas kisses back, all tongue and teeth, hands tight on her jaw. And then, just as quickly, he pulls away, panting softly. He leans back and takes a deep breath, the intense energy between them disappearing. He looks almost stiff as he rearranges the papers in the folder, scattered from his reach over the table. “But we would need to solidify our arrangement before the commencement of penetrative sex. A trial period, let's say." Dasha swallows hard. "Well then, shall we continue?”

Solas manages to keep his cool. Manages to pretend like he hadn’t just kissed her like a starving man in the middle of a café, but Dasha can’t sit still.

They’re still talking dirty. Sort of. He’s going down a list of sex acts that get more exotic the further down he goes. Dasha has to ask for clarification more than once and she’s been bright, beet red from her cheeks to her chest for so long she’s worried her skin will just stay that way. He seems to find that delightful, smiling softly whenever he glances up at her. And it’s his nonchalance that gives the whole meeting the strangest feeling. Dasha’s sure that the people around them in the café must assume that the two of them are meeting to handle some mundane, possibly difficult, legal matter. Lots of paperwork, no touching, the whole vast space of the table between them.

Dasha signs what Solas presents her with, makes alterations in pen when necessary, and tries to wrangle the intense sensations running wild in her body. Her excitement feels suspiciously like vertigo. Or maybe vice versa. Sera’s death had gutted her, but it’s taken this bright, voluminous feeling to show her just how much. She didn’t take him up on his offer of wine, but she’s feeling a little drunk. Sometimes, when she laughs, she feels hysterical.

She hasn’t touched her food, though the smell is enough to make her stomach cramp angrily. It’s a giddy vice. The food doesn’t interest her, but it seems to interest Solas very much. He glances at her plate every few minutes. Those glances are erotic. His worry is erotic and she is violently reminded of just how right he’d been when he told her he knew she wanted to be taken care of.

She manages to joke with him after a while, charming like she can’t remember the last time she was, and he rewards her with a laugh so warm and honeyed that she almost reaches out to touch him.

When Solas finally pays the bill, it’s nearly dark outside and the wind’s picked up again. He puts his arm around her on the way out the door and she lets him, lets herself lean in a little. They look like a couple. Even though they aren’t one. At least she doesn’t think they are. “Will you be warm enough?” He asks, running his thumb absently along her shoulder.

Dasha tries to remember the last time someone held her like this. “Should be, yeah.” He nods and they pull away from each other, the air cooling in the space between them.

They stand just outside the café, close enough that their breath plumes together in front of them, winter all over again. And just when summer had seemed so firmly entrenched. “Are you heading home? I can call you a cab.” Dasha does the mental math on the price of a cab ride from Midtown to Brighton Beach, adds it to their overpriced dinner and fleshes out a little more of him, of what his life must be like.

Her brain is on a rampage, chewing up her thoughts and spitting them out into dark, unrecognizable things. The steady feeling he’s given her is rapidly dissipating and the idea of going back to the apartment is unbearable. And she can’t go with him, obviously. He would have just asked her if that’s what he wanted. Shit, Dasha wishes she could keep it together for more than a couple of hours. The whole city feels like it’s swallowing her whole. The night so empty and vast and that terrible homesickness rises up in her again. “No, um, that’s alright. I like the train.” She does actually, realizes that as soon as she says it. She likes the quiet company, likes the rush of the air when you step out onto the platform. It was maybe the only thing she missed when she moved to LA.

“At,” he checks his watch, “8:30? It’s already dark. Late to be alone on the train.”

“Oh, um, I mean I’m not worried.”

“I can call you a cab.” He says again, this time with more force.

She actually does have a bit of a plan now, forming quickly as she tries to keep that homesick feeling at bay. She’s got it almost all figured out before Solas can even say another word. It’s a well-worn groove that she can slip so easily into. Salt and pepper chips and rainbow cookies and a bodega egg sandwich or two. One of those dense, faintly greasy lemon cakes that come wrapped in plastic. Seltzer water to make it all come up easy. She just needs to be alone. Can find a spot downtown to use the bathroom, to work things out. “I need to run a couple errands.”

He seems to consider that before nodding. “I see, well, you don’t have much time.”

She glances up at him. “For what?”

He chuckles, but then he leans closer lowering his voice. “Such a bad girl, already forgetting the terms of our contract.” She gapes at him. “Bed by eleven on weeknights. Or was I not clear?”

She shivers. “Oh, shit, sorry.” Then she adds hastily, “sir.”

“Solas,” he tucks her hair behind her ears and then leans down, whispering. “You can call me sir when I’m punishing you this weekend.”

She looks up at him. He seems enormous now, towering. She should be afraid, petrified. This is, objectively, rationally, the dumbest thing she’s ever done and it’s now coming into stark, sharp relief. But mostly, when she looks at him, she wants to tuck herself into his coat. Their contract waxed poetic about trust. Over and over it hammered it home. Dasha isn’t all sure about all that. Not sure what that would feel like. Not sure she cares to find out. But now, in the fading light in this nightmare of a city, this nightmare of a year, she finds that it isn’t all that important whether or not she trusts him. Freefall is warm. “Maybe I won’t need to be punished.”

Solas kisses the corner of her mouth. “Maybe you won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3. Your comments and kudos keep me going!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dasha’s a big ole mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for eating disordered behaviors.

Dasha purges in the bathroom of some fancy grocery store off sixth avenue. Feels such an intense wave of vertigo that on the way out she buys some raw, organic meal bar that’s more expensive than anything the size of her palm has a right to be and holds her breath as the cashier swipes her card. The woman looks down her nose at her, but the card goes through, to both their surprise.

The night is steaming when Dasha heads back out into it. A darkness touched by neon, edged with fog. There’s a chill in the air, but it has no teeth. Dasha teeters on the sidewalk, reaches out to grip the slick edge of a trashcan to try and keep herself upright. Her head feels foggier than usual, her sinuses pulse in her face. This binge had been rougher, her stomach stubbornly holding onto what she’d given it and she’d heaved so violently that a capillary broke in her nose, a fine trickle of blood slipping over her lips. She’s gotten worse at it. Maybe because it's reaching a crescendo she cannot possibly contain, or maybe it’s because death has touched her and each time now her fingers wait hesitantly at her lips for her to pluck up the desperation to open them. This night had been no exception, tinged too with a strange circular guilt that makes her want to call Solas, to cry and tell him that she’s afraid, terrified, and so, so empty. But she shakes the feeling violently off her. Fancy contracts aside, he probably doesn’t want to hear shit like this. Why would he? 

Dasha closes her eyes, breathes hard through her nose, and seriously considers calling a taxi. But she’s almost positive her checking account is just barely hovering over zero and her last fellowship payout isn’t coming for two more weeks. She’ll be fine. The vertigo is already subsiding. If she can just get on the train, just get back to Josie’s place, then she’s going to be just fine.

In the end, she figures it was probably better that she got on the train anyway, because as soon as it pulls away from the station, she starts to cry. It’s nicer to have a breakdown in a crowded subway car than in the dark, murky backseat of a yellow cab. Not that she’s having a breakdown, per se. Her tears are quiet, almost measured. Her lips trembling like a sullen little kid. She can’t even figure out exactly why she’s crying in the first place. Some combination of terror and relief, maybe. She might just be overwhelmed. She glances down at her phone. Quarter past ten. Solas wants her to be in bed at eleven. She might make it. Her phone is like a tether now, or a lifeline. His number something she could actually use, was _expected _to use. It feels suddenly heavy in her hand. When it vibrates, she nearly jumps out of her seat.

_ Have you arrived home safely? _

It’s him. Her fingers twitch over the screen. She can’t place the feelings sloshing around inside of her. Maker, is she tired and maker is she so full of longing. Dasha imagines curling up beside him, his long fingers brushing through her hair. The warm scent of him enveloping her. It feels humiliating, to be this attached already. Attached to nothing. She wants to call Sera. More than anything. She’d have some perspective on this, would be able to set Dasha straight. She rubs at her eyes and slides her phone open.

_Yes, thank you._

She doesn’t know why she’s lying. Doesn’t really even need to, but her head is pounding too hard for her to think straight. Her phone buzzes again.

_I’m glad. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll speak in the morning. _

It’s hardly anything really, almost a dismissal, but that tender gratitude rushes up inside of her again. It’s easy to keep crying.

Dasha creeps into the apartment. It still doesn’t feel like hers, doesn’t think it ever will. So she slips inside like a thief. Sticking to the shadows, quick on her feet. Light flickers in through Josie’s lowered blinds. From passing cars, the train, streetlamps. She flinches each time the light touches her.

Varric is snoring softly on the couch, blanket tucked up to his chin. He’s been in and out. A couple nights at his editor’s apartment, a couple nights here, bouncing around on the weekends to places of friends Dasha’s never even met. He’s always been like this. Indecisive. Brutally, impractically nomadic. His last book was a New York Times bestseller and they’d all celebrated his hefty advance the year before with stupidly expensive champagne and New York slice. So she knows he’s got the money, but she can feel the twitchy energy wafting off him even as he sleeps. He hasn’t changed a bit.

Still, it’s nice to have him in the apartment. He offsets her and Josie’s own manic energy and when he isn’t orating, he’s not a half bad listener. Dasha almost thinks to wake him up, to tell him that she actually did it. Varric is always telling her what a masochist she is and now she’s put it in goddamn writing. They might have a good laugh over that. Her throat is sore. Better not.

Dasha’s phone buzzes in her purse. She slides it open as she pads down the hall.

_You’ll send me your food diary by 8pm tomorrow evening. This will be your only reminder. _

Ah, yes. The food diary. She’d been thinking about that, mostly while bent over that grocery toilet. There’s part of her that has it all figured out. She’d lived in LA long enough that she’s fairly certain she can come up with some kind of convincingly bland, vaguely healthy food diary. Hell, her first roommate in the Garment District had eaten the same sad lentil salad every day for dinner that whole year they lived together. But there’s a bigger part of her, a new part maybe, that wants to provoke him. That wants him to watch her self-destruct, to try and piece her back together. Dangerous thinking, really. They’re not together. At least not in any way Dasha knows how to navigate. The contract said nothing explicit about catching feelings but its omission, in a document otherwise anal to the point of paranoia, speaks volumes. She reminds herself that she doesn’t have feelings about him any which way. That lust isn’t a feeling. 

_I won’t forget. _

She waits for him, nails tapping on the screen. When her phone buzzes again, she exhales.

_Good girl. _

Her stomach flutters.

Dasha slows as she passes the kitchen, almost on instinct. It’s impossibly dark, lit only by the steady, lonely blinking time on the microwave. She must have done that. Josie would never let the time stay wrong.

Dasha’s at the fridge before she can stop herself. Her body is feral. Hard to tell if it's propelled by her own thorny feelings or the animal need to eat, eat, _eat. _None of the fridge’s contents even register. She grabs the closest thing and just holds it. It feels so heavy in her hand that she’s about to put it back when Josie slides into the room, face lit in pieces by the fridge’s ambient light. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” Josie’s slippers make a soft rushing sound as she pads into the kitchen. She slides up onto the countertop. The room is so narrow that Josie’s bare legs brush against the hem of Dasha’s dress. “I was waiting up.”

Dasha holds the food container like a piece of mail and something sloshes unpleasantly all to one side. “You don’t have to wait up for me.”

“Yeah, but I like to, you know.” She smiles at Dasha. “ How was your date?”

Dasha frowns, then remembers. She’d lied. Had to really. Josie might have chained her to the radiator if she told her where she was really heading. Tinder, she thinks, that’s where she said she met him. She scrambles trying to remember what else she told Josie. “Fine, fine.”

“Think you’ll see him again?”

Dasha shrugs, a little relieved that she’s managed to play it cool this far. “Not sure.” 

“Huh.” Josie takes a deep breath and smooths her hair back. Her breathing always sounds meditative, measured. Dasha always sounds like she’s two beats from hyperventilating. She tries to remember how the fuck she ended up in the kitchen. “Did you, um, have sex?”

Dasha snorts. “What in the restaurant?” She peels off the container’s plastic top with her nails. It smells nice, maybe spicy, but she can’t look at it. Her throat feels dense. “Nah. We kissed though. A little.” She flushes at the memory, rolls her shoulders to try and let it go.

Josie laughs. She sounds less riled up. “That’s nice.”

“Are you gonna eat this?” Dasha sets the container in the microwave, shuts the door hard like it might crawl out and bite her.

“My leftovers? Looks like you’ve already dug in.” Dasha makes for the handle to take the container back out, but Josie stops her. “I’m kidding, girl. Go for it.” Their narrow kitchen window rattles. They both stop and listen. Wind whistles down the street. Dasha shivers at the sound. Cold wind has a different tenor. She’s forgotten that too. “I heard there was going to be a storm tonight. Was it raining when you came home?” Dasha shakes her head. Josie fusses with the knobs on the sink. A single crack of lightning makes them both jump. The faintest rumbling of thunder chases it across the city. Dasha shudders. “The weather’s been so odd.”

“I was just thinking that! It’s so weird. It’s uncanny, like…” Dasha trails off. In the days before Sera died, they’d had record rainfall. Weather like LA had never seen. Streets flooded, water rushed loudly into swollen gutters. They’d pronounced her dead at the hospital. Dasha wasn’t family so they’d turned her loose. She’d wandered out into the brightest sunlight she’d ever seen, the warmest, most beautiful day she could have imagined. She had one of Sera’s rings clutched in her fist. Unsteady as a lost fawn. A bird fallen out of her nest. 

“Yeah.” Dasha can hear Josie’s nails clacking on the counter. “So, what was it like?”

Dasha jumps. “What?”

“The date.” Dasha nearly doubles over in relief. She isn’t asking about Sera. “With what’s his name?”

Her relief quickly dissipates. “Um, Sam” She hesitates. “He was a…stock broker, I think.”

Josie cocks an eyebrow. “You think?”

“You know me, I don’t pay attention when men speak.” Josie smiles softly to herself. The microwave buzzes behind them. “It was hot. I mean he’s hot, I find him hot…so,” Dasha scrapes her fingers through her hair. “He bought me dinner and-“

“Wait, what was wrong with it?”

“What?” Josie nods toward the microwave. “Oh, uh, nothing. I just got nervy. Couldn’t really eat.”

Josie frowns, leaning closer. Dasha can hear her sniff. “Did you get sick?”

Dasha swallows hard. “What?”

“You smell like you got sick.”

Dasha recoils from her. “I took the train home. The subway always smells like vomit. How long have you even been living in New York, Maker.” 

Josie narrows her eyes, but leans back. “Yeah, I guess so.” She slides off the counter and pats Dasha on the shoulder. “Well, I should probably head to bed. Have to be up early tomorrow. Night.”

“Goodnight.” Dasha waits until she hears Josie’s door slide shut, then yanks the food from the microwave. She tosses it in the trash before checking her phone. He hasn’t texted her. It’s long past midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dasha isn't as clever as she'd hoped.

Dasha knows this is a dream by the way the sun feels on her face. There’s no place in New York City that feels this bright and this clean and good no matter the season, no matter the weather. The air is salty. She can almost picture kelp drying on the sand, its wet smell. She knows it’s a dream because Sera has lipstick on her teeth. Because she’s there in front of her.

They’re on the main quad, sitting in the grass. Palms sway gently above them. The faint scent of oranges wafts off the trees lining the ruddy brick pathway. Sera’s got her legs crossed, a baggy plaid shirt open and slipping off her shoulders, an old t-shirt tucked into a frayed pair of high-waisted shorts. She’s chattering away, laughing as the breeze catches on her jagged bangs. Dasha wants to reach out and grab her. To hold her and never let go. The breeze smells like pinon, like sage scrub. Sera looks at her, backlit by the sun, and smiles. Dasha’s heart shatters and she can’t help herself. She leans over, pulling Sera into a tight hug. She smells like ginger ale, like cheap CVS perfume, like cigarettes. She’s so warm against Dasha’s skin, vital and alive and Dasha starts to cry. “What’s gotten into you?” Sera laughs as she squirms out of her grip.

“Nothing, nothing.” Dasha sits back on her haunches, wiping furiously at her cheeks. “It’s just so good to see you.”

Sera cocks her head. “See me? When don’t you see me?! I can’t get rid of you.” She teases.

Dasha manages a weak laugh. “Yeah, I guess you can’t.”

Sera screws up her face. “Is this about Rylen?”

Dasha almost snorts. Maker, Rylen. What an absolute fucking non-entity in the wreckage of her life right now. It had barely been anything at all, really, even if it had felt so hugely important at the time. He was a Navy reservist a few years older with a neck tattoo and a heavy Scottish accent. Maker, they’d fought as much as they fucked, a tempest of an affair. Dasha stopped taking his calls after Sera died. He’d stopped calling pretty quickly after that.

“He’s not worth your tears, baby doll.” Sera scoots closer and tucks Dasha’s hair behind her ears. “No one that boring is even worth your time.”

Dasha reaches out and holds Sera’s hands tightly against her face. “I love you.” She squeezes her fingers. “I love you, I love you, I _love you._”

Her mattress is drenched in sweat when she wakes. She nearly propels herself off it, gasping for breath, the bare fabric of it scratchy on her palms. A car honks outside and Dasha jumps at the sound. She gapes at her window, shocked to see the rows of buildings unfolding through the glass. Shocked to be back in New York. A siren howls down the street and Dasha takes her own pulse. Maker what a vivid dream that had been. Someone on the sidewalk knocks over a trashcan, someone yells. That hole in her chest flutters wider. That homesick feeling overtakes her.

Dasha rolls out of bed and pulls on a pair of jeans. She slips her old UCLA hoodie over her head. It’s stained in places, worn on the sleeve where she’s worried it with her fingers. This room has started to depress her. The lack of sheets, the absent furniture. Her place in LA was a different beast entirely. A cute, little studio in an adobe building with tan tiled floors and big, wrought iron windows. She’d filled it with art prints and plants and a hodgepodge of southwestern furniture she’d picked up for dollars at flea markets all over Fairfax. This room is so empty, so absolutely devoid of warmth. Dasha slips her sneakers on and heads out the door.

It isn’t as cold as she expected it to be this early in the morning. Dasha flips her hood up over her heard, stuffs her hands into the big front pocket. The bright light inside the bodega is, for once, comforting. She nods to the guy behind the counter and heads down the cracked linoleum toward the back. Dasha isn’t sure exactly what she’s here for, maybe nothing, but there’s something deeply comforting about the rows of colored wrappers, the wilting produce, the radio on the counter playing the clipped tones of a language she can’t understand. It all reminds her of long nights of studying, taking breaks to go get something to snack on, safely cocooned in the past. She knows each scene by heart.

Dasha runs her fingers along cans of beans, stewed tomatoes. She wanders for a while, catching her breath, bringing herself back down to earth, then heads back toward the entrance. She’s nearly through the front door when a yellow wrapper under the register catches her eyes. Mr. Goodbar. An honestly repulsive candy, but Sera loved them. She ate them all the time, always had some around her place. Dasha buys two, eats them one after the other on the sidewalk, then opens her phone. It’s a reflex. One she doesn’t even notice until she’s typing a message to Sera. She freezes. The world slows to a stop around her. Her lungs are impossibly heavy in her chest.

Dasha doesn’t know how many times she’s looked at their last text exchange. She’d spend hours going over and over it. Sometimes trying to piece together that blurry, awful night, sometimes desperate to get even a piece of her back, no matter how small. Sera’s family hadn’t come out to California to collect her body. No one was there to wait in the county coroner’s office but Dasha. They’d given her Sera’s phone, her jewelry. The very last text Sera ever sent had been to her. Dasha reads it over again, even though she knows it by heart.

_Sweet dreams, Daisy Daisy. C u tmrw <3 <3 _

Dasha had left her on read.

By the time she gets back to the apartment, Dasha is open-mouthed sobbing. She collapses onto the hardwood, her bag slamming loudly onto the floor. Josie is beside her in an instant, like she’d been waiting up. She doesn’t ask her what’s wrong, just helps her to her feet and down the hall toward her room. It’s funny how so much can be left unsaid now, how living together in the wreckage of their grief has created a quiet language all their own.

Josie helps her out of her jeans, pulls her toward the bed. Josie’s room is lush, all soft fabrics and pale wood. Her mattress is soft and nice, nothing like what she’s been sleeping on for weeks. It feels wrong, unnatural. She shouldn’t feel things like this when Sera can’t feel anything at all, but Josie is quietly insistent and soon they are both on the bed.

They lay like that for a long while, their arms intertwined. Dasha cries until she can’t anymore and in her muted sniffling, notices for the first time that Josie has been crying too. Dasha squeezes her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just…you must have been fast asleep.”

Josie shrugs, sniffling too. ‘Not really.” Silence falls between them and Dasha wonders how many sleepless nights Josie has had, how many times she’s had to explain away her puffy eyes. They don’t talk about things like this.

“I don’t think I can stay here.” It comes out suddenly, a shock.

Josie doesn’t flinch. “You can stay here for as long as you want.”

“No, I mean in New York. I just…everything feels like…”

“A tomb.”

Dasha blinks at her. She shouldn’t be surprised that Josie is right here on the same page with her, but she is. “Yeah.”

Josie nods, glancing way. “Do you think you’ll go back to California?”

Dasha wipes at her eyes, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I just…not for a while. I can’t. There’s no way I can go back there, not without her.” And it’s true. She can pretend here, fool herself into thinking that maybe Sera is still alive. The warm, California breeze tousling her hair. To return to all their same places, empty now, she can’t imagine it.

‘You know you can stay here for as long as you need to. You know that.”

“Yes, yes, I know that.”

“But maybe.” Josie hesitates and for the first time, Dasha realizes that she’s trembling, that her whole body is brittle like ice. “Maybe it might do you some good to get out and do something.”

Dasha sits up, wiping her eyes. “Like what?”

“Like a job. Just something easy.”

The idea provokes nothing inside of her. She’s hollowed out. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds okay.”

“I know a little restaurant in Midtown that’s hiring. The chef used to do work for my father. I’m sure I could get something lined up for you. It could be a nice little break. Something to keep your mind off…” Josie hesitates and Dasha squeezes her hand. She returns the gesture with a weak smile, “off of everything.” 

“I guess I don’t see why not.”

They lay quietly beside each other for a long time, the passing cars casting shadows over their bodies. Josie’s the first to fall asleep and, when she does, Dasha watches her carefully. She tries to memorize her face, holds tight onto her hand. Everything feels so fleeting, so frighteningly uncertain. But the bed is warm and Josie is here now. Dasha listens to her breathing. She lets her eyes flutter closed. It might be nice to work at a restaurant for a little while, to slip into a different skin. Midtown is an alright part of town, all things considered. It’s close to her old university, sure, but she doubts anyone would really recognize her. She wonders if the restaurant looks anything like the one Solas took her to. _Solas. _Dasha’s eyes fly open. Josie looks peaceful before her, blissfully unaware of what Dasha has done. Of the man she’s signed herself over to. Guilt rushes up inside of her like a torrent.

When Dasha wakes up in Josie’s bed, the sun is already high in the sky and she’s alone. She sits up, wiping sleep from her eyes and feels, genuinely, a little better. Like all she needed was a good cry, some sleep.

She makes a pot a coffee and drinks it black, watching the cars pass below through the kitchen’s narrow window from her perch on the counter, feet dangling. She’d scrubbed herself hard in the shower, wrapped herself up in one of Josie’s terrycloth towels and her skin feels new. Maybe she is new. She even takes a few experimental sips of Josie’s soylent. It tastes chalky, but sits easy in her stomach. She checks her phone, scrolling through the notifications.

_Florianne Chalons <[fchalons@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:fchalons@humnet.ucla.edu)>_

_You in town?_

_Hey Dasha, wasn’t sure if you were around campus this_

_semester. I’m looking for someone to moderate a panel at_

Delete**. **

_Annette Roberts <[aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu)>_

_ Respond to this email _

_Dasha, I would appreciate hearing back from you. I understand_

_ that this is a difficult time and I am more than willing to try and _

Dasha hesitates then deletes. She scrolls past a long stream of texts from Zevran. Something about a house show in SoHo, something about scoring some blow. Dasha grimaces. The coffee is already making her a little jittery and the thought of standing in a crowded, sweaty punk house coked out of her mind as over-amped bass rattles the window panes sounds like a goddamn nightmare. Varric’s texted a couple times, asking if he left his reading glasses at their place. Dasha makes a mental note to take a quick look around for them. She continues to scroll, almost passing a facebook notification before stopping suddenly in her tracks when she processes the name on the screen.

_Leliana Bisset liked a photo on _ _❀_ _Sera O’Connor’s profile _

Oh maker, oh fuck. Dasha had logged into Sera’s profile a few days after she died, intending to download everything then delete the damn thing. But she’d lost her nerve. No one’s touched it for weeks. That first flurry of posting on her wall dying quickly down to a slow steam and then nothing. But it’s even more surprising to see the other name in the notification. Leliana shared studio space with Sera. An abstract painter with a penchant for erotic watercolor and hyperrealist portraits of accessories. She hadn’t even bothered with the funeral, sent a single solitary text asking Dasha when she could by to pick up Sera’s shit, complaining about a dent Sera had left in the wall. Apparently she still just can’t leave well enough alone. Dasha deletes the notification, rolls her shoulders, trying to push away the feelings roiling around inside of her. She checks the time. It’s four pm. She should probably text Solas. The idea fills her with a sudden rush of wild longing and just the faintest spark of fear.

_Hey_

She grimaces. Not exactly charming, but his response is almost immediate and she wonders what his life is like. Where he works, what he’s doing.

_Dasha, hello. _

She swallows.

_For the food diary _

_Do you like _

_Just want me to type it out? _

_In a text? _

She tapes the screen and looks out the window again. Her mind feels frighteningly blank, every nerve in her body alight. 

_That would be fine, yes. _

She starts to pick at the skin around her nail, then stops herself, remembers the way he took her hands gently in his to get her to stop.

_Right, okay. _

_Cool. _

Dasha grimaces again, doesn’t remember if she’s ever been this lame in her entire life.

_So, okay _

_Breakfast: Grapefruit and Toast _

_Lunch: Lentil salad with sweet potato _

_Dinner _

She hesitates, biting her lip. What makes sense? What did she used to eat when things weren’t quite like this, weren’t quite this bad.

_Had a sandwich for dinner. Turkey and tomato._

Her heart is pounding and when her phones buzzes with his response she inhales sharply.

_Is that that all? _

She frowns.

_Yes? _

His response is immediate and she can practically hear the incredulity in his voice.

_That’s all you’ve eaten today? _

She can feel her heart thumping her throat. That’s more than enough isn’t it? Maker, that’s so much more than she’d actually had. But he’s clearly not satisfied and Dasha finds herself scrambling for an excuse.

_Busy day _

She worries her lip with her teeth.

_You will eat more tomorrow. _

All the lights in the room are suddenly too bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect another long, smutty update soon. Thanks so much for reading <3


	9. Chapter 9*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dasha soars high, then comes crashing back down to Earth.

“You look pretty.” Varric tosses his messenger bag onto the stoop and settles on the bottom step beside Dasha. He’s a little more dressed up than usual, look uncharacteristically worn out, and Dasha figures he’s probably just come back from a meeting with his editor.

“I do my best when I’m not with you.” Dasha stretches out, the sun warm on her bare legs. The waning, evening light glitters on the sidewalk. She rolls her ankles, trying to soothe away the nerves that have settled inside of her. It’s been like this since morning. She’d woken early, every nerve firing off at once. She’d had coffee with Josie, picking at the oatmeal she’d made, trying to figure out a way to tell her she’d be home late without arousing suspicion. Because Solas had texted her two days before. Told her to meet him at the club Friday night. To wear something pretty. To not wear a bra. He’d used the same clipped tones as he had all week and it left Dasha feeling uncertain and more than a little insecure. She wonders if maybe that’s the point.

“Well, you do alright.” Varric rolls his neck, joints popping loudly, then sighs heavily.

Dasha eyes him. “Long day?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He stretches his arms above his head. “So I’m gonna enjoy this sunshine and then get very well-acquainted with that bottle of whiskey Ruffles has squirreled away in the pantry.”

“Careful,” Dasha teases, “or you’ll become your father.”

Varric throws his head back and laughs. “My brother, more like. Old patriarch Tethras has nothing on Bartrand’s pathological lack of self-preservation.”

“Where is Bartrand these days?”

“Vegas.” Dasha raises an eyebrow. Varric waves her off. “It’s a story for another night.” A loud thump makes them both jump. The couple six floors up has thrown open their window, the sounds of their fighting tumbles down onto the sidewalk. “Gotta love New York City.” Dasha makes a noncommittal sound in her throat. Varric nods at her outfit. “You wore that in Paris.” Dasha cocks her head at him, confused. “I remember. You were at an exhibition at the Jeu de Paume a few years ago. Ruffles got a great picture of you there, put it on Instagram.

Dasha remembers now. A Luigi Ghirri retrospective. She’d always been enamored by the pastel peachiness of his photographs and when Josie scored her an invitation, she’d jumped at the chance, taking a day-long train from Prague to Paris. She’d worn a flowing white crepe blouse that cut low in the front tucked into a pale tennis skirt, had to iron the wrinkles out in the narrow shower of her hostel before she met up with Josie. Dasha had wanted to look sexy, virginal. Some approximation of the long-legged, carefree girls she used to see playing tennis on their jaunts up to the Montilyet’s house in the Hamptons. Those girls were so effortlessly desirable and she had wanted, above all, to rise into that. She’d earned it hadn’t she? An academic in Europe, visiting a friend in Paris for an exhibition. She’d made it, hadn’t she? It seems silly now, but here she is, in the same outfit.

Dasha didn’t plan to wear the same outfit today, but she knows better than to think it’s purely coincidence. She’s trying to recapture the scene, wield cinematic repetition as a way to…to what? Varric shifts beside her, Dasha tries to settle back into herself.

“Amazing you can remember that, but you still have no idea when my birthday is.”

“I just know you’re a Virgo and that’s all I need to know.” Dasha scoffs. She scuffs the sharp points of her flats on the sidewalk. They’re suede and now that she lives somewhere where it actually rains, she knows she’s destined to ruin them. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

Dasha glances behind her. They’re the only two on the stoop. “Waiting to be picked up.”

Varric looks at her full-on now, raising an eyebrow. “Picked up?”

“Yeah, uh,” Dasha scratches at her neck. “The, um, guy I told you about.”

“Andraste’s holy tits, the sex club guy!?” Varric throws his back again and laughs.

Dasha shushes him, looking quickly back at the building. “Maker, Varric. Tell the whole neighborhood, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Varric lowers his voice, but he’s still laughing, a delighted glint in his eyes. “So you’re actually doing it, huh?”

Dasha bristles. “I said I was going to, didn’t I?”

Varric chuckles. “Guess you did, Peaches. So should I clear out before he comes and sweeps you off your feet?”

Dasha scoffs. “You can relax. He called me a cab.”

Varric perks up. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah?”

“Wow.” A cab pulls up to the building, its tires a half up on the curb. A dirty grin spreads across Varric’s face. “Maker, is this it?”

Dasha stands, swinging her purse over her shoulder. “Uh, yeah. I imagine so.”

“Wow, how erotic.”

“What?” Dasha glances over her shoulder at the street. “The cab?”

“Yes, absolutely. It reveals so much don’t you think?” Dasha makes a face at him. “Spending money on you already.”

“It’s a cab ride.”

“Yeah to Tribeca.”

“To Chelsea.”

“Even further! And it’s rush hour. On a Friday night!”

“I mean, sure, okay.” Varric can’t take his eyes off the cab and it’s starting to fill Dasha with the sort of unnamed dread that she’s been trying all day to get out from under. Dasha taps her nails on the car door, hesitating on the curb. “Yeah, well, don’t wait up and…” She looks again up at the building. “Don’t tell Josie.”

Varric scoffs. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Peaches. On either account.” He grins again. “But you should know, my dear, that I wait with bated breath to hear how this all goes. Spare no details.”

“Literally, I would rather die than be in your next book.” They both flinch. “I didn’t-“

Varric brushes her off. “I’m not Josie, Peaches. Don’t worry about it.” He smooths his hair back. “But, uh, you got my number. You know you can call me if you need anything.”

Dasha grips the doors handle. She can see the driver getting antsy through the dirty windows. “I know.”

Dasha waits outside the club like she had outside the cafe: pace and planning, each moment with more clarity, to flee. This time, though, it feels more dire. She can almost see the fork in the road in front of her and she hates herself for the bland metaphor. And it’s more than that really. She’d realized, with a shock, on the ride over, that she’s been looking for signs. An omen. Maybe all week, definitely since the café. She scans the few cars parked along the street, looking for a broken taillight, a scrawled message. She doesn’t find anything, but thinks, with a chill, that maybe she isn’t paying close enough attention. The wind is warm, but has an almost sinister feeling. It blows the neon clean off their signs, everything fuzzy and muted like a watercolor. Dasha watches the people who pass the entrance to the alleyway. None of them tell her anything, none of them bring her any closer to figuring out if this is right. She knocks on the door, she holds her breath.

Dasha bristles when she sees her name on the bouncer’s list in the front room. She wants to explain that she isn’t, like, _one of them, _but knows that would make her sound like an asshole and, worse, a lying asshole. She is here, isn’t she? And a quiet thrill is buzzing inside of her now. She’s itching to be touched, to be hit. It unsettles her, but she leans into it. The air is different in the club.

Solas is waiting for her at the bar. It startles her. She isn’t sure what she’d expected. Maybe something less casual, but there he is, looking placid as he makes small talk with the bartender. She spots him immediately. He’s a head taller than nearly everyone else and eons more striking in his dark suit. It takes him a moment to find her though and in the seconds before that glimmer of recognition settles in his eyes, she contemplates bolting again. But then his eyes are on her, a wry little grin breaking across his face. He waves her quietly over and she, like a fish caught by a lure, moves through the dense crowd without another thought. “Hello.” His voice is so deep, so smooth, even over the thump of the music. He tucks her hair behind her ears and the soft, warm scent of him washes over her. She resists the urge to collapse into his arms, to hold him tightly against her.

Instead, she just smiles, laying her fingers lightly over his. “Hey.”

He nods toward the back of the club. “Shall we?”

“Stay here.” She freezes in the doorway. He’d been mostly silent as they’d walked down that familiar hallway and the sound of his voice jolts her like an electric shock. It’s hard like it had been that first night here, like he’s risen back into the stern man who’d taken her over his lap, not the wry man who bought her coffee. He strides into the room, letting her linger there in the threshold. She has more time than she did the first night to take a look around, but she finds it just as unremarkable as she had then. Brick walls and hardwood floors. The divan and the table. There’s a set of drawers beside the divan, a larger wardrobe on the other side of the room, another, smaller table beside a pair of chairs. Solas turns his back to her, sloughing off his suit jacket and setting it on the back of one of the chairs. His cufflinks clatter on the table as he removes them one by one, then he rolls his shirt up to the elbows, like he has work to do and the thought makes her shudder. When they lock eyes again, Dasha feels a sudden wild surge of energy. She wants to run at him, take him hard between her teeth. She wants to flee, she wants to scream.

His touch cools her. She hadn’t even seen him cross the room and his fingers on her jaw still her whole body. He reaches behind her to shut the door, then takes her face in his hands. With an almost disinterested look in his eye, he turns her head one way, then the other. “You’ve been disobedient.”

He radiates heat and Dasha closes her eyes and leans in closer. Had she been disobedient? It’s hard to even remember what she’d done this week. Time moves so strangely now, forward and backward. Some days last forever, some gone before she even opens her eyes. “Okay.”

She hears Solas chuckle, feels his soften his grip, then he pulls away completely. Dasha stumbles without him to lean on, reaching back for the door to keep herself upright. “I’m ordering us food.”

She blinks at him. “What?”

He’s already across the room from her, swipes his hand across the table with the chairs. “Did you leave your food diary purposefully incomplete or are your nutritional habits really that poor?” She just stares at him. “That’s what I thought. Sit.” Dasha’s thoughts have come crashing to a halt. She gapes at him, considers laughing, but her body has stopped responding. Solas turns to face her, arms crossed over his chest. He looks down at her like she’s a child throwing a tantrum. “Tell me your safe word.”

Dasha straightens up. Her brain and body click back together. “Detonography.”

Solas points to a spot on the floor beside where he’s standing. “_Sit. Down._”

By the time Solas decides what kind of takeout they’re getting, Dasha’s about to collapse. He has her sitting with her legs tucked under her, hands resting obediently on her thighs. He told her to be still, told her to be silent. And he’s been ignoring her with an impressive rigidity ever since. Her body is so stiff doesn’t even have the mental space to quietly panic at the thought of eating in front of him. Her legs are killing her and her feet have gone completely numb. She tries to look at pathetic as possible, tries to tell him with her slumped shoulders that she’s going to be good now. It doesn’t seem to be working.

She hasn’t even the faintest idea how long she’s been sitting like this. The darkness filtering in through the room’s single window gives her no clues. Nor does he. Every so often he’ll look up from his phone, but his gaze is more appraising than anything that would give her a sense of when or how this is going to end. From the looks of it, he’s responding to emails, scrolling through articles. Sometimes he’ll change positions. Dasha watches each minute movement. A scream is building up inside of her. She wants to hit him. The urge is almost all-consuming. She wants to hit him right in his smug face. Wants to break something, wants to shout at the top of her lungs. Maker, she wants to scream. And she’s about to, honestly gearing up to just let it out, when he kneels down in front of her. She hadn’t seen him coming, hadn’t even heard him get up. He lays a hand gently on one of her thighs when she startles. She gulps. Solas kisses her on the corner of her mouth. “Are you going to behave now?”

She ate. Not enough if Solas’ watchful gaze was any indication, but more than she’s had in a while. And it should be making her panic, but it’s hard to feel any kind of way with his cock in her face. It’s almost funny how big it is, how heavy it is against her cheek. He has a porny cock, thick and hard, pretty almost, thought the thought feels a little delirious. She wants to make a joke, but her brain supplies nothing useful, so she just stares up at him, the hot weight of his cock brushing past her lips.

She’s mostly naked, just her panties still on, her hair a wild mess already. He’d undressed her almost brutally. He, though, even with his cock out, is still as stoic and put together as always, still nearly fully-clothed. His pants are loose around his hips, belt hanging menacingly beside her head, the muscular tops of his thighs all she can see. This feels familiar, in a way. Dasha thinks she probably wrote about a scene like this before, maker knows the films she used to study were full of shit like this. Turgid cock, woman on her knees, lips slightly parted. Solas taps his cock a couple times on her nose, almost playful. “You’re so fussy with what goes in that mouth of yours, aren’t you?” She bares her teeth and he chuckles. “Maybe I’m a fool for even letting you get this close. I’m not a fool, am I Dasha? I won’t regret this, will I?”

“No, sir.” He smooths a lock of hair from her forehead. Her tongue darts out at his cock, the sudden overwhelming desire to provoke him too much for her to fight. He sucks in a surprised breath and she reaches up to take him in her fist. But she’s not quick enough and he yanks her back by the hair so roughly that she cries out. She rocks backward, trying to take inventory of what’s just happened, and finds that her head doesn’t hurt like maybe it should. Just a slight sting on her scalp, the shock in the movement, not the force.

He waits for her to right herself, for the shock to wear off, and then tugs just slightly at her hair to bring her attention back. “Beg for it.” She blinks up at him. “Beg for my cock, Dasha, I will not ask you again.”

She can feel the heat in her cheeks, sure that she is red from the root of her hair down. “Please, sir.”

“Please sir, _what_?”

Dasha swallows hard. “Please, sir, let me suck your cock.”

He swipes his thumb across her lips. “Do you think you’ve earned it?” She nods frantically. Maker, it shouldn’t be this easy to slip into the scene, shouldn’t feel this natural to beg for cock on her knees. “I suppose that will have to do.” He taps her lips with his thumb. She opens them, laving her tongue along the tip of it. “Keep your hands behind your back.” He warns, and she does, adjusting so she can lean toward him. She drags her lips along the full length of him, her tongue darting out to trace the thick vein running up it. Solas exhales, the sound almost meditative. She glances up at him to find his eyes nearly closed, lips just parted. She takes him in her mouth. Then takes him further. She opens her throat, gagging only a little when he slides into it. The muscles in his stomach flutter. “Naughty little girl.” He runs his thumbs across the hollows of her cheeks. “Where did you learn this?” His fingers ghost along her aching jaw. “I wonder, Dasha, how much you can take. How hard can I fuck this throat?” She looks defiantly up at him, eyes burning.

“Don’t move.” Solas lifts her easily onto the table, like she weighs nothing. He positions her on all fours, head facing away from him. “I’m the only one who gets to move you.” Dasha’s jaw is numb, the salty taste of him lingering at the back of her throat. His hand passes between her legs, just the briefest touch, and she rocks back for more. He removes it quickly and she can’t stifle her angry groan. She’s uncomfortably wet, pussy throbbing. He’d fucked her throat for so long that she’d nearly tapped out, but there had been something almost painfully erotic about the whole scene and that had kept her going. It was messy, primal. His thrusts rough, almost brutal, and yet there’d been something gentle about the way he held her head, hands curled in her hair. More than once she’d tried to grind herself against her own thighs, seeking friction. The second time he caught her, Solas yanked himself out of her mouth and kicked her bent legs apart with such force that she’d nearly toppled over.

So she’s desperate now, desperate and needy in a way she’s never been in her whole life. She’d do anything, say anything, to get him to let her cum. He brings his hand again between her legs, holding it still against her lips, and she ruts back against it even though she knows this is a test. Solas slaps her hard on the back of her thigh. The sting rushes to her center and she can’t contain a needy moan. “What did I say about moving?”

She whimpers. “I want to cum.” There’s something about facing away from him that makes it easier to say shit like that.

“Bad girls don’t get to cum,” he says as he arranges her. He lifts her hips up a little higher, presses her face gently down onto the table.

“I want to cum.” She says it more forcefully this time, wriggling in his grip.

He lays his hand on her ass, a little warning. “So you’ve said.”

“Please let me cum.” The position makes her feel like she’s not real. Or maybe that the room isn’t real. It’s foreign enough that everything else takes on a foreign quality too. If she closes her eyes, it’s easy to imagine that she’s somewhere far, far away.

Solas takes her wrists in his hands and presses them against the small of her back. “There’s not a thing you’ll get from me without earning it.”

“I think I’ve earned it.”

“Oh? You think opening your mouth is earning it?” He smacks her ass. “It’s not.” She whimpers. He repositions her wrists, tying them gently together. He’s using rope, she realizes, tying her up with rope. Yes, right, they talked about this. The thought skims over her. Maker, who knows what else she’d said yes to in the bright sunshine of that café that she’s about to live now here in the darkness. She’s doesn’t really have time to think about it, to sit with it, before he’s running the smooth length of it across her wrists. He tests the rope with his fingers when he’s done. She wriggles away from him and he lands a hard, painful smack on the back of her thighs. “What did I say about moving?” She groans, leaning away from him. “You know what? No talking either. I don’t want to hear a sound from you. Are we clear?” She says nothing, shifting all her weight onto her shoulders and bearing down on the table. He chuckles, soothing the spot on her thighs where he’d hit her with his palm. “That’s a good girl. Maybe now we can discuss rewards.” He slips two fingers inside of her.

She’s going to die. It’s the first coherent thought she’s had in Maker knows how long. She’s going to die because he isn’t letting her cum. Because her body is pulled so taut that when she finally does, she’s going to shatter. _If he does. _The thought makes her go even more rigid, her pussy clenching around his fingers. It’s so wet and sensitive, overstimulated and yet aching for more. Solas is infuriatingly patient. Fingering her sometimes almost absently, walking her slowly to the edge, then yanking her back before she can tumble over. It is _maddening. _

She grinds mindlessly toward him, body slick with sweat. Dasha has no idea how much time has passed, not even the slightest inkling, and it’s dizzying when he flips her onto her back. At least she can see him now. It helps ground her, just a little. She practically preens under his gaze and he rewards her with a single swipe across her clit. Dasha writhes, barely able to even process his throaty chuckle. The sensation between her hips starts to build again as he fingers her, but she is helpless to do anything about it, biting back a whimper. He quirks his fingers and her whole body pulses. The sensations are bordering on painful now and she’s so exposed in the way he’s positioned her. Her legs tied and spread, her hands still in the small of her back, and something else starts to build. She realizes, with a jolt, that she might cry, that she’s going to start trembling. “I’m overwhelmed.” She gasps. Dasha wasn’t supposed to talk and she flinches, expecting a reprisal.

It never comes. He pauses, rubs his free hand gently along her thigh. “That’s not your safe word.” His voice is softer now and Dasha’s body relaxes some.

“I know.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Yes.”

Solas pulls his fingers from her and smooths his thumb over her clit. “Why are you overwhelmed, little girl?”

She squirms at the touch. “I don’t know.”

He leans down to press a kiss to her knee. “Maybe you need to be properly distracted.”

He got her kneeling on the taller table, the wood hard on her knees. She’s high up enough that they’re nearly eye to eye. Some of the softness has returned to his pale eyes, but Dasha still shrinks instinctually away from his gaze. Her hands are still tied behind her back, her shins to her thighs, and it’s taking every ounce of her concentration to keep herself upright. He, apparently, notices. “You look so graceful,” he brushes her hair off her shoulder, “let’s see if you actually are.” He strides over to the cabinet and Dasha slumps, releasing her shoulders. She’s trembling now, even if that overwhelmed feeling has started to dissipate. It’s a small mercy really that there are no mirrors in this room. She must look like a mess. Her skin is slick with sweat, her hair limp around her shoulders. Solas is still dressed, still composed, but even he has unbuttoned the top buttons on his shirt, his brow glistening with exertion. The room smells like sweat and sex and musk. His footsteps echo in the stillness.

It’s funny how quickly she recognizes the thing in his hand. She’s never used one, but the familiar curved head of a hitachi is ubiquitous. He lays it between her knees and turns the vibrator on. Her knees rattle on the table. Solas switches it off. He glances up to meet her eyes. She shudders under the intensity of his gaze. “Would you like to cum, Dasha?” She nods furiously. “How badly?”

“Please.” Her voice is choked. “Please, sir, please. I’ll do anything, I’ll…”

“Anything, hmm?” He flips the wand on again, rolls it up her thigh. “Well, aren’t you accommodating.” Dasha yelps when the wand comes in contact with her clit, squirming desperately away from it. He lets up, letting her lean against him, waits until her thighs have stopped trembling. He smooths her hair from her face. “My sensitive little girl. It’s only going to get worse for you if you keep fighting,” He sets the wand down between her legs again, flips it on. Dasha shudders. Solas runs his hand up her thigh. “Sit on it.” She wavers, looking up at him, her eyes begging. He looks sternly down at her. “Sit on it, Dasha.” She lowers herself down without another thought. Her muscles jump when she touches the vibration, but she doesn’t move from it. “Good girl.” He increases the vibration, holding it in place.

Dasha nearly doubles over. “Andraste’s fucking tits.”

He leans closer, his breath hot on the shell of her ear. “Now let me hear those pretty sounds.”

She screams, honest to the maker screams, when she finally cums. He has to hold her by the shoulders to keep her upright. A stream of nonsense pours of out her mouth. Pleading and moaning and his name over and over and over. The table is drenched, her thighs too and before she can even process what’s happened, her arms and legs are free, the skein of rope in a pile on the floor. She wraps her arms around his neck before she can think to stop herself and he lets her, holding her gently to his chest. She shudders against him, fingers flexing into the stiff cotton of his shirt. “What a good girl.” He coos in her ear, “my very good girl.” The room is so quiet she can hear their hearts beating, almost in time. 

“Do you, uh, want me to touch myself?” Dasha has been, up until this moment, content to let the hot water sluice down her back, let it work out all the kinks in her sore body. The bathroom where they are now is two doors down the hallway. A tiled affair with a glass-walled shower. Clean but sparse. Like everything she’s seen here so far. And it’s been soothing, nice, but now she feels like maybe she owes him, maybe she should put on a show.

Solas is leaning against the sink counter, watching her, appraising again. But his face breaks into a grin at her question. “That won’t be necessary.” He takes a sip from his glass of water. He’d insisted she finish hers before they even made it to the bathroom, when he’d still been massaging feeling back into her hands and shins.

Dasha frowns. “Aren’t you bored?”

He meets her eyes, an amused look on his face. “Oh little one, you quite seriously underestimate how enjoyable you are to look at.” She covers herself almost instinctually, mock indignation on her face. He chuckles and then, without thinking, she splashes him. His smile widens, a childlike mischief glittering in his eyes. But he doesn’t retaliate, just stands and shuts the water off. “That’s quite enough of that don’t you think?” His voice teasing. His eyes turn serious though as he takes her face in his hands “How does your throat feel?”

She looks up at him and smirks. “Didn’t expect you to be the type to fish for compliments.”

He chuckles, then turns her jaw this way and that in his hands. “You hardly know me at all, Dasha. Isn’t that what you keep saying.?” She snorts. “I am serious though. Was it too much?“

She looks at him. He looks even more handsome now that he’s more relaxed, less controlled. She can easily imagine him as a professor, looking sternly over the tops of his classes, his office a cocoon of books. The fantasy elicits a strange twinge in her chest.“No.”

He frowns. “I worry that you won’t tell me.”

“I will.”

Solas looks hard at her, then trails his hand down her bare body. “You’ll be sore.” He says, brushing his fingers in her downy pubic hair, then running them up her hips. “All over.” Dasha cants her hips weakly toward him. Her body feels wrecked, worn out, but if he asked, she’d spread her legs for him again. It’s a wild feeling. “You were so good.” He brushes against her pubic hair again. “I like this,” he says with a mischievous smile, “you don’t get a lot of women under forty with this.”

Dasha bristles. “I mean I shave the lips.”

He grins. “I’m aware. You’re so thorny about compliments. Think I could punish that out of you?” Her breath hitches. He smiles, then leans down to kiss the top of her cheekbone. “Let’s get you dressed. I’ll call you a cab.” 

Her first thought, as she’d walked out of the club toward her waiting cab, had been to call Sera. Her second, as she stood listlessly on the sidewalk outside her building, is to head up and tell Josie all about her night. But she couldn’t do either and instead headed down a few blocks to a pizza by the slice place she knew stayed open late. Which is how she’s ended up here, tucked in the corner booth, nursing a diet coke, on the phone to Zevran, wishing she’d never called him in the first place.

The conversation had started alright. She’d told him all the dirty details, listened to him fawn over Solas, tell her how lucky she was, how fun it all sounded. But she’d made the mistake of telling Zevran how much she liked Solas, how interesting she thought he was out of session and his tone had changed immediately. So now she’s babbling, trying to cover her tracks. She doesn’t _like _Solas, just likes how he makes her feel. Of course. Obviously. And she thinks she’s doing a pretty alright job, when Zev interrupts her, sounding more serious than she’s used to. “Don’t get too attached okay?”

She jolts upright. “What?”

“You just sound like you’re getting attached.”

Dasha bristles, then lowers her voice. The pizza place is mostly empty, but there’s something about this that makes her want to whisper. An old man is reading the newspaper two booths down, the guy at the cash register looking lazily off into the distance. She’d rather they not get an earful of whatever this is going to be. “I do not. I _am_ not.”

“Yes, very convincing. Just…you should know that he could take on someone else whenever he wants. He could decide to be done, just like that.”

She swallows hard. There’s a grease stain on her table and she picks angrily at it with her nails. “I mean that’s any relationship, right?”

“Yeah, but…you’re not together.” 

“Okay yeah, but like…we’ve literally signed a contract. Like I mean..” Dasha’s laugh is manic, “when’s the last time you did that in a relationship?”

Zevran sighs over the phone. “This is why newbies should never do shit like this. The contract doesn’t mean you’re together. He’s not dating you. This is about fucking. That’s all it’s about. Everything outside of that, everything that might _feel _like a relationship, that’s just foreplay.”

Dasha deflates. “I mean, I know. I know.” She feels hot again, vaguely lightheaded and she can’t stand another minute of this conversation. “Listen, I’ve got to go Zev.”

“Oh come on, don’t be like that-“ Her phone is louder than she expects when she sets it on the table. The man two booths down look up from his newspaper. She grimaces at him while she finishes her coke, then slumps over, resting her head in her hands. The whole world seems quiet. Just the tick, tick, ticking of the clock above her booth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading <3 <3 <3


	10. Chapter 10

Dorian’s from the Bronx. He doesn’t tell her that, but he doesn’t really need to. She’s been in the city long enough to know. He’s got that Belmont look. Dark hair slicked back with gel, heavy gold rings on his fingers. But when he speaks, she can tell he’s working hard to mediate that thick, nasally accent and the tight pants he’s wearing make her think he probably spends a lot of his time in the West Village. Or maybe Williamsburg from the way he’s gelled the ends of his mustache into little curls. But none of that really matters because the way he’s looking at Dasha now reminds her of the time in college she saw a brawl outside Eataly on 5th Avenue and she tucks herself a little in, makes herself a little smaller. “So what you’re saying is that you have _zero _waitressing experience?”

“Um, my mom was a waitress.” Which is not a lie. Ellana Lavellan waited tables at a diner off I-25 since she was a teenager. The place served incredible pie and all the same customers for years and years. Dasha used to skirt around her mother’s apron, picking at scraps like a lost, little dog.

It’s not the answer Dorian’s looking for and his loud groan startles one of the busboys skirting quickly past them. “Would you believe that waitressing is not genetic?” He holds the bridge of his nose and breathes hard through it. “Andraste’s ass, I have no idea what kind of egregious nepotism got you this job, but may the maker help me.”

Dasha smooths the black pants they’d given her and tries to project competence. She’s not sure she remembers how. Besides, she knew she was in way over her head the moment she stepped into the restaurant. All of Manhattan is from another life, but this particular corridor that ends at the MoMA’s front door is like a long-forgotten dream. She knew she didn’t belong here before she even got inside, the insides just make her sure.

The restaurant is longer than it is wide, with high ceilings and tall windows, the bustling street outside hidden by heavy, dark curtains. Everything is a shade of gold and red. The chandeliers, the carpet runners on the hardwood. Even the lamps and sconces scattered around the restaurant emit an almost fire-like glow. It looks like the kind of place Frank Sinatra might have hung out in the fifties, the décor stuck helplessly back in that decade with him. And yet, it’s still glamorous, still has that distinct air of money, of luxury. She fights the urge to reach out and tug at the petals in one of the many tall, flowing bouquets lining the restaurant. Dasha straightens up, suddenly vividly aware that she’s been zoning out. “I’m a quick learner,” she tries to assure him, though her performance thus far probably hasn’t been all that impressive.

Dorian narrows his eyes at her, sniffing once. “Well, you better be. This isn’t a Denny’s. It’s lower Manhattan and this institution has two, TWO, Michelin stars.”

Dasha’s never waitressed, but she knows as soon as very first customer to set foot in the restaurant, that she’s being thrown to the wolves. Her first table orders such a complex array of dishes and wines that she can barely scrawl them all down fast enough It’s only by the maker’s grace that she has enough basic French to keep the names of the food from sailing right over her head and she immediately ducks out to try and find Dorian. He’s the one who finds her, practically frothing at the mouth. “Hello, we have customers out there.”

“I know,” she hisses back, “but shouldn’t I be, like, shadowing someone?” Dasha looks around at the people rushing through the restaurant. “Like shouldn’t someone…” She trails off, the room suddenly very hot.

Dorian rolls his eyes before heading off toward the mammoth wine rack at the far end of the room. “If we had the people for that, we wouldn’t have needed to hire you,” he calls over his shoulder. And then Dasha is stranded, standing uselessly in the center of the glittering, rapidly filling room. She rakes her fingers through her hair and takes a deep breath.

The menu’s smaller for the pre-theater crowd. And the people are rushed which makes them, strangely, less interested in what Dasha’s doing. It’s a relief, really, as she weaves through the crowds of men in suits and women in flowing dresses. She makes small talk, but not too much, scrawls orders dutifully down, her jaw aching from keeping her mouth drawn up into a smile. She keeps her head down, her mind clear and finds that, surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to be half bad at this. Maybe waitressing is genetic after all.

Dasha nods to a group of men in sport jackets on her way back to collect their tip. The two hundred dollar bills tucked beside their receipt fills her with revulsion and a deep, thrumming pleasure all at once. She feels like a different person, more anonymous here than she’s been anywhere in her entire life. And the feeling is good, even if she can’t hang onto it for long. Her thoughts slip easily away as the tables fill.

He’s the last man to come in before they stop pre-theater service. He’s handsome and stoic, a floral pin tucked into his lapel and she falls immediately into his orbit. And it terrifies her. Because he reminds her of Solas and even though she’s only known him for weeks, just the idea of him can make her fall in line.

The man orders a whiskey, he wants it on the rocks, and when he asks her what she likes on the menu a new terror settles inside of her. Because when she tells him that she likes the la sole grillee, which is what Dorian told her to say, the man tells her that she has very good French. And what he doesn’t say, but most certainly means is that it is good _for a waitress. _And the implication cuts right through her. She imagines, as she heads back to give the kitchen the ticket, that he really is Solas. It’s not all that out of the realm of possibility. Columbia is just across Central Park from where they are now. Why wouldn’t he come to a place like this? The gold setting of his watch glitters in her memory.

Dasha slips back behind the bar and pours herself some soda water. The bartender nods silently at her. She feels light-headed, unsteady on her feet. What would she do if he came here? Saw her like this? She imagines herself trying to explain, stuttering through assurances that she’s only doing this for a little while. That she has a PhD. Almost. And a great chasm of longing and regret rises up inside of her and for maybe the first time in almost two months, she wonders what the actual fuck she is doing here. What the fuck she’s done. Urgency rushes through her veins, but it doesn’t stay long, because soon Dorian is clearing his throat behind her, reminding her in a clipped tone that she is _not _getting paid to stand around. 

Dasha slips into the kitchen when the theater crowd finishes clearing out. It feels more real back here. All the chrome, the chilled air. The two sous chefs have gone out for smokes and it’s quiet in the way she needs it to be. Exhausted is too mild a word for what she is. But the hollow feeling inside of her is a pleasant distraction. It has no sharp edges.

She opens her phone out of habit and when her fingers go searching for the ‘s’ she isn’t sure if she meant Sera or Solas and the shock of it pulls her right back out of her head. A pot is roiling on the stove, steam billowing out, the metal clicking against the flame. The kitchen smells densely of butter, of lemons, of coarse herbs. Her stomach clenches, angry and empty and she feels suddenly singularly hopeless, her phone heavy in her hand.

And what if she did text him? What would she say? That she was so sore after their session that she could barely sit, but each sharp bolt of pain had been tinged with a sick pleasure? That she had felt, for sometimes hours on end, like she was falling. Tumbling from nothing, into nothing? That all of the things he had warned her about had come rushing over her and she’d been too afraid to call him and tell him? Afraid of what, she wasn’t really sure. That she misses him in a real, true way that has started to scare her, that makes her feel lonely like she’s never felt? That the intensity between them has more than made up for the brief time she’s known him. Probably. Maybe. It’s hard to think straight about it. Funny that Zevran, who never pays attention, could be so spot on. She tucks her phone back into her pocket and kneads her temples. She’s so goddamn in over her head.

“Dorian says you’re doing well.” Dasha nearly jumps out of her skin. She was sure she was alone in the kitchen and when the source of the voice comes into view, she’s not sure how she could have missed him. He is _massive. _Maybe the most enormous man she’s ever seen. His head nearly bumps on the pot rack as he heads toward her, his shoulder so wide they take up nearly the entire galleyway. Thickly corded muscle roped over his already huge frame, so bulky that his white coat strains against it. His head is shaved and Dasha immediately notices two scares singed deeply over his left eyebrow. The eye underneath obscured completely by a cloudy cataract.

She realizes she hasn’t responded and straightens up. “Oh, uh, really?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles to himself., “Dorian seems like a hardass, but he’s not. If he really didn’t think you could handle it, he would have turned you away at the door.”

“Oh.” Dasha picks at the skin around her thumb. “That’s good to know, I guess.” The man smiles, leaning on the steel table opposite her. She clears her throat and sticks out her hand. “I’m Dasha.”

He has a strong grip. “Bull.”

“Bull?”

When he laughs, the muscles in his stomach ripple and he throws his head back, revealing the thick stump of his neck. “An old nickname I never shook off. If you’re feeling really cheeky, you can call me The Bull.”

Dasha manages a laugh. “I think I’ll stick with Bull.”

His rumbling laugh makes her feel a little buoyant, a little warm. She can’t help but smile. Dasha squints at him, trying to place where he belongs in here, what he does. He’s wearing a chef’s coat, but maybe he’s the meat guy? Or… “I’m the chef de cuisine.”

She must have been giving him a look. “Oh, _oh._”

Bull chortles. “Yeah, I get that a lot.” He nods back toward the row of stainless steel stoves. “You missed staff dinner, but we got a lull between pre-theater and dinner rush. Let me whip you something up.”

“Oh, no that’s okay.” It’s a reflex really, more than it’s something conscious. Even now that food has become such a brutal enemy, now that her brain has flipped, betrayed her so completely.

Bull looks almost startled, then eyes her. “Let me make you something. Bad for business if we’ve got the wait staff passing out beside the tables.” He heads back to the closest stove, tying his apron a little tighter. “You some kind of vegetarian or something?”

“Oh no, I just…”

“Like to eat healthy. I get it. Give me a minute.” He heads to the fridge, rooting around in it until he produces a bowl of clams. “You into shellfish?” 

“Sure.” Dasha feels rooted in one spot, her mouth desert dry, hands tight fists at her sides. She watches him salt a pot of boiling water like it’s the most horrifying, most grotesque thing she’s ever seen.

He angles his head toward her. “You like citrus?” Dasha nods, her throat tight. She watches him squeeze a lemon with his wide palm and her stomach pulses. Her mother used to make lemonade in the summers. Would sit on the plywood steps of their trailer and squeeze lemon after lemon into a big, old mason jar. Dasha used to watch when she stirred in the sugar, watch each crystal blink out into that sunshine-y color. And the memory unlocks something primal in her. Suddenly all she wants is a bowl of green chili. Chunks of pork so tender they fall apart in her mouth, the steady burn of hatch chilis at the back of her throat. Scooping it all up with tortillas hot from the stove, soft and thick because the lady who makes them down on the corner of main street uses an old recipe. Dasha nearly heaves. The energy drink she’d slammed before her shift is sitting at the base of her throat, all acid and she suddenly wants to cry. Like a child. She wants to be scooped up, held. Wants to be sitting in her mother’s kitchen, or Sera’s kitchen, or hell anyone’s kitchen, watching them cook, feeling hemmed in by someone else’s routine. “So, this your first waitressing job?”

Dasha blinks at him, then clears her throat, coming back down from her thoughts. “Yeah, yeah. Could you, uh, tell?”

He chuckles. “You do look a little shell-shocked.” Dasha manages a smile. “But you’re starting in the deep end, so I can’t really blame ya for that.” Bull drops some garlic into a pan and it hisses in the hot oil. Dasha closes her eyes and lets the scent wash over her.

They eat in silence and she knows it should taste divine just by the way it smells, but her tongue is dead in her mouth. It tastes like nothing. Her heart slams against her chest. She can’t help but watch the way their water glasses are sweating, the way her fingers are shaking, just a little. She can’t help but notice that, even though they’ve known each other for less than half an hour, the silence between them doesn’t feel at all uncomfortable, feels almost cocooning. She doesn’t trust it for a minute. “Well,” Bull says, taking a few gulps of water. “Back to it, huh?”

The restaurant’s a different animal when it’s closed. When most of the lights are out and they’re all huddled back by the bar. It feels cozy, the lights from passing cars casting ghostly shadows over the empty table. But that might just be because Dasha’s tired. Exhausted really. The kind that seeps down into her bones. But it hits different than what she’s been feeling for the past two months. It doesn’t feel bottomless. Feels instead that she might actually be able to sleep it off. Dasha rolls her neck, flinching at the loud crack. Dorian looks up at her over the pile of tips he’s dividing up. He quirks an eyebrow and she braces herself. “Well, you are, in fact, a quick learner.”

Dasha startles, surprised. “I, um, wow, thank you.”

He eyes her, then offers a sly smile. “See you tomorrow.”

She’s nearly to the subway stairs when an old jeep comes rumbling up beside her. The night is warm, finally feeling a little like summer, and she’s let her hair down from the bun she’d worn in the restaurant, letting the breeze ruffle it. The jeep comes to a stop and Dasha peers up at the darkened driver’s side window. Her first instinct should probably be to get the hell out of there, but she really is exhausted, and, honestly, her sense of self-preservation went missing months ago. It’s only when a man sticks his head out the window that she startles, but she quickly recognizes him. Bull grins at her. “Need a ride, boss?”

Dasha raises an eyebrow at him. “Boss?”

“I saw you out there. You were ruling the roost at dinner service.” Dasha shakes her head, but she can’t hide a small smile. “So, you want a ride home or what?”

Dasha crosses her arms. “Where ya headed?”

“I live in Jersey, but I’ve got nothing but time to kill. I can go any which way.” Dasha glances over at the subway stairs. Even from here, the tunnel looks dark and wet. Lonely. She shrugs, makes a noncommittal noise, but heads over to the passenger door anyway. It smells like cigarettes when she opens it, and then something else. Something so close to home that if she closed her eyes, she can almost picture her mother pinning up laundry on the line outside their trailer, the desert rolling out infinite behind her. Pinyon pine and sandalwood, the faintest scent of red chili pepper and the sweet smell of cactus flower. She brushes a little dirt off the seat and swings in. Folky music plays softly from the radio but Bull still leans over to turn it down. His shaved head jostles the bald eagle keychain hanging from the rearview mirror. He’s out of his chef’s coat now. Clad in only a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and a pair of shorts. He’s got thick, dark geometric tattoos snaking up one arm, deep scars, like from an animal, all along the other. She notices another tattoo, this one on his thigh. It’s a dark circle, three black shapes branching from the center like petals, white dots at the center of each. She’s sure she’s seen the symbol before, but she isn’t sure where, figures it probably doesn’t matter anyway.

“Thanks.” Dasha buckles her seatbelt. She feels tiny in the car, tiny next to him. “I’m staying in Park Slope.”

“Staying? Not living?” Dasha shrugs and Bull only chuckles. He puts the car in gear and they rumble forward into the night.

“So where you from?” He asks as they start over the Brooklyn Bridge. The moonless night reflects black onto the East River. He’s been quiet for most of the drive, humming along to the radio, and so the question startles her into honesty.

“New Mexico.” Before quickly adding. “Not like Albuquerque or anything. Nowhere you’d know.”

Bull laughs. “Ah, what a coincidence. I’m from Nowhere You’d Know, Arizona.”

“No shit?” Dasha bends her legs up on the seat, rests her head on her knees. He nods. “Small world.”

“Absolutely is.” He clears his throat. “So. What’s your story?”

Dasha frowns at him. “Little late at night to be asking me my life's story, don't you think?”

Bull laughs that rumbling laugh. “Yeah, I figured you’d be a tough nut to crack.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You have that look.” Dasha only shrugs and Bull lets it drop, but as they drive closer and closer to Josie’s neighborhood, she glances again over at him. In the darkness of the car, his skin has taken on a pale bluish tint. The skin around his eyes is creped, his expression worn out. It rings so true to her, that look on his face. He looks over at her and winks. His eyes are placid as untouched water. Dasha settles back into the passenger’s seat. It’s covered in a woven fabric, frayed and hard in places. It feels deeply, deeply like home.

Bull drops her off on the sidewalk and Dasha has to bite back the sudden urge to give him a hug. It smells like New York again. Feels like New York again. The little western interlude in Bull’s car fading like a dream. But the chilled out feeling it gave her doesn’t fade. She glances behind her and finds that the lights are still on in Josie’s window. She smiles. It’s an alright night, really. The feeling of dread that had rooted itself so completely inside of her feels lighter in her chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading guys <3. Smut in the next chapter ;)


	11. Chapter 11*

By the time Dasha finds herself standing outside the club late Friday evening, she’s dead on her feet. She’d nearly dozed off in the taxi Solas called her, feels unsteady in her heels as she totters down the alleyway.

Sleep had been elusive all week, her dreams distorted and frantic, and she’d wake sweating in her bed, feeling like she was falling; empty and bottomless and terrified. She feels similarly bottomless as she winds through the club, busier tonight than she’s seen it before. Solas is in the same suit, leaning against the bar, making what she assumes is the same small talk with the bartender. And the loop is painful, because this time, all she wants to do is lay her head against his chest and let him hold her. But that’s not why he’s here, not why _she’s _here. Zevran’s warning rings in her ears even as she manages a smile for him. This foreplay is brutal.

Solas asks for her safe word at the threshold and she hesitates. She looks up at him, stares hard like she can unravel him. There’s something simmering under his placid surface, something that feels frightening. She remembers getting into Bull’s car, remembers Sera’s blackened fingernails, her lips pulled back from her teeth. Frightening is her life now, is all she knows, and _detonography _falls out of her mouth without even passing through her brain. 

He pulls her hard into the room, bends her roughly over that same table. This, at least, is different than before. Gives her brain something to chew on. Solas hitches her dress up over her hips and pulls her panties down her thighs with the same rushed intensity that he’d sworn that first night was a rarity for him. So she’s bracing herself, preparing, hoping maybe, for the kind of unleashed violence that she’d seen online. Wants to go home and lick her wounds, nurse her bruises. But all he gives her is silence. His palm is pressed into the small of her back, the warmth of his body radiating against the bare backs of her thighs, but she hears no movement. Doesn’t even think she can hear him breathing. No, no Dasha is _not _in the mood for this. His silence feels physically painful. Ruthless. But then he drums his fingers against her skin and she realizes that his pause is hesitation, not punishment. “You’re trembling.” Dasha sucks in a ragged breath. “Trembling like a little animal.”

“I’m scared.” And it’s true, even if she hadn’t realized it until that very moment. She is shrouded in fear, carrying it around on her shoulders like a coat. And maker she is so tired. Tired in her fucking bones.

“Of me?” Dasha hesitates. Solas slides her panties back up around her hips. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.” He smooths her dress back down and she can hear his shoes clack on the hardwood as he steps back. “Stand up.” She does, leaning heavily on her palms, still half bent over the table. “All the way.” Dasha takes a deep breath and straightens up, swallowing hard, staring at the brick in front of her. She feels his warmth before she feels his touch. Leans into it when he sweeps her hair over one shoulder to reveal her neck. “Do you like Japanese?”

Dasha turns finally to look at him, brow knitted. She’s sure she missed something, some vital other part of the conversation that led them to the question. “What?”

Solas runs his hands along her arms, soothing the goosebumps that dot them. “Japanese food. Do you like it?”

Dasha turns, pulling herself out of his grip. Then she hesitates, sure that she’s broken some unspoken rule about moving. But he says nothing, staring down at her, calculating almost. “I’ve already eaten.”

He raises an eyebrow, hands clasped behind his back. “What did you have?” Dasha balks. Her tongue is heavy in her mouth, her thoughts slow. He nods quietly to himself, then gestures toward the door.

The cab is dark. Dasha watches his hands. Long fingers, neatly trimmed nails. One resting on his knee, the other holding up his chin as he looks out the window. His skin is silvery in the light of passing cars. The moon is huge tonight, sitting low in the sky, vanishing behind buildings as they drive. Higher and higher each time it reappears. Dasha wants to reach over and take his hand. Wants to feel the weight of it on her own terms, not just when he gives it to her. She can’t stand the unspoken distance between them. They’ve talked every single day for weeks now and yet they’ve said nothing. Are no closer at all to knowing each other in any meaningful way. Which is exactly how Zevran said it would be. Exactly what she told herself she didn’t care about.

She’s been pining. Fantasizing _hard _about something just like this. But now that she’s here, on the way to a restaurant where there will be nothing for them to do but talk, she wishes he had her bent over a table instead.

The restaurant’s a long narrow room, packed with tables, a sushi bar to one side. It’s late, but the restaurant is still crowded, a hum of conversation drowning out any other ambient noise. The whole room is lit with red light, paper lanterns bobbing just below the ceiling. Solas nods to the maitre d and he nods for them to follow him. Dasha nearly jumps out of her skin when Solas lays his hand gently on the small of her back, guiding her forward down toward the back of the restaurant. It feels suspiciously, painfully, like a date. Everyone around them must think they’re a couple. She squirms away from his touch. He looks down at her but his face reveals nothing. He orders them a bottle of chilled sake, then pulls his glasses out of his pocket. “It’s small plates mostly. I’m going to order us an array.” Dasha’s heart is in her throat. 

“You are awfully reluctant to talk about yourself.” Dasha stiffens. They’ve been making small talk mostly. Skirting around his probing questions, skirting too around most of the food, sake sloshing around in the stomach she’s worked so hard to keep empty. “And that’s fine.” He pushes a small bowl of marinated pumpkin toward her with his chopsticks, nodding pointedly at her. She plops one of the pieces into her mouth and makes a big show of chewing it, nodding as she does. It tastes like nothing in her mouth. Solas knits his eyebrows, but lets it go, taking a bite of one of the meat skewers he’d ordered them. He even manages to make that look elegant, purposeful. Dasha feels small and young and messy all over again. “I don’t expect my subs to tell me about their lives if they don’t wish to.” He tilts his head so their eyes meet. “But you can, if you’d like. I’m certainly interested.”

Dasha shifts in her seat, takes another quick sip of sake. Her heart is jumping. She’d dreamed of this during long nights with her hands between her legs, pining for him. That he’d sit her down and ask her all about herself, desperate to know every piece of her. _What hurts, Dasha. Tell me what hurts. _She’s lividly embarrassed by the thought now. He’s just making small talk, trying to get to know her like he probably has with every other sub. She wonders frantically if he’s dating outside the scene. If he takes slim, sleek women closer to his own age to nice places like this, fills his nights with their quick, witty banter. Dasha used to be capable of that. Used to be engaging and sharp. Used to have a whole life, instead of just this shell. “I’m…” She picks at the chicken skewer he’d left on her plate, “not that interesting, I guess.”

Solas sips his sake, eyes never leaving her. “That, I very much doubt.”

Dasha knows she’s been in the bathroom too long. Knows that soon Solas is going to start wondering what she’s gone off to do. If he isn’t already.

Dasha kneads her fingers into her jaw, looks at herself hard in the mirror. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do either, glances over at the toilet, back at the locked bathroom door. It’s hard to figure how much she’s actually eaten. Solas had been persistent, harder to dodge. And she’d, by the nature of trying to keep him distracted, distracted herself. She presses her fingers hard into her stomach, like she can take inventory of her insides. The sake is throwing her for a loop too. Liquor’s usually a safe bet, but it had a sweet, almost floral taste and Dasha remembers the can of cherry blossom sake at the botanical gardens with a frown. She flips up the toilet seat, hikes up her dress so she can get on her knees without dirtying the fabric, but then she hesitates, stands back up straight.

It’s been rough lately, the process. Her body has been fighting her and, each time after she throws up, her head will spin. She has to lay down, let the vertigo pass. Terror rises up in her at the thought, Sera’s black nail beds flashing in her mind. She walks back to the sink, washes her mouth out with the tap. If she passed out in front of Solas, he might take her to a hospital. She can’t go back to a hospital. _Cannot. _Once was enough. Once on that horrible morning was more than enough. She heads for the door.

Dasha curses as he hoists her into the air. Her hands ball into fists, body tensing at the feeling of being so high up, so out of control. He’s hog-tied her really, though the smooth rope and intricate knots makes it feel much more elegant than that. He tied her wrists behind her back, tied her elbows, snaking the rope just under breasts, checking with his fingers that each pass of the rope wasn’t too right. She’s suspended now by around her waist, one on each thigh. Her ankles are free, though if she tries to straighten her legs, the tension in her shoulders is almost painful. He pushes her just softly so she swings from the restraints. “Oh, maker.”

Solas chuckles. “Not what you expected?” He brushes some hair off her forehead, their faces level now.

“I had no expectations.” He smiles that wry smile of his.

“You can be so good when you want to be.” He runs his hand down the swell of her ass, then smacks it. Dasha yelps. “A shame you so seldom want to be.”

She wants him to touch her more, wants his full attention. Goading him seems to be the best way to get it. She’s a quick study. “I’m always good.”

Solas chuckles, his laugh deep and rumbly, and brushes Dasha’s hair off her back. “Gods, that tone. You love to be punished, don’t you.” He comes back around in front of her, cocks his head like he’s studying her. “But how much can you really take, Dasha?” She struggles a little against the rope, mouth stubbornly shut. The side of Solas’ mouth quirks upward, his eyes glittering. “Tell me your safe word.”

“Detonography.”

There’s a beat of silence and then his face slams shut, eyes cold and stern. He takes her jaw roughly in his hand. “What am I supposed to do with a bad girl like you, hmm?” He releases her so quickly that her body tenses, sending her swinging ever so slightly. He swats her ass. Hard. “Hmm? Nothing?” Again in the same spot. Dasha gasps, her body fighting uselessly to get away. “Defiant.” Another hit, this time on the other cheek. “Stubborn.” Another hit. She whimpers, her head hanging low. “Combative.” The next hit is the hardest. She swings forward, jaw aching with the pressure she’s putting on it. It’s a surprise when his hand slips between her legs, soft now as he rubs his fingers against the wet center of her panties. “But so pretty.” He kisses her ankle. “So perhaps you can be forgiven.” Dasha sighs, releasing her body, letting the ropes hold her. They don’t pull or chaff like she expects. Each part of her feels buoyant. Solas hums his approval. “Especially pretty when you let go.” He circles her clit, just ghosting around the edges, and the sensation soon becomes unbearable. Dasha rocks back toward his hand, trying to bring her thighs together, desperate for friction. Solas holds her thighs steady, chuckling darkly from behind her. “There’s a reason you’re tied, little girl.” Dasha squirms in his hold. It’s wild, being suspended above the floor like this, the air cold on her skin. “And it isn’t to rut like a bitch in heat.” He slaps her pussy and the sensation races up her body. No one’s ever touched her like that; she’s never even _thought _about being touched like that. And yet. She rocks back, wanting more. If she can’t have him, she can at least have his violence. The thought feels easy. The voice of who she used to be cries out. His fingers drown it out between her legs.

She rocks back again. “Please, sir, I want to cum. _Please._”

Solas walks his fingers up her spine. “Only good girls get to cum, Dasha.” He runs his flat palm back down. Dasha writhes. “Do you think you’re a good girl?” She nods frantically. His thumb finally, _finally, _finds her clit. Dasha bucks against the touch. “Are you sure?” But there’s no bite in his voice anymore. He kisses one of her shins, his free hand tracing rhythmic circles along her thigh. Soft and soothing. And then his touch is gone. All at once. Dasha gasps at the absence. Solas walks slowly around her, taking his time as though he’s appraising her body. When he finally settles in front of her he holds fast her gaze, hands clasped again at his back. “Or maybe not. What makes you a good girl, Dasha?” She just gapes at him. He shakes his head. “See what I mean? I want so to reward you, little one, and yet you seem unable to follow even the simplest of directions.” Dasha groans, twisting against the ropes. He tsks. “Oh my girl, I think you need to be taught a lesson.”

Dasha’s desperate now. Her pussy throbs, thighs slick with her want. “No, no, no, please.”

Solas runs his thumb along her lips. “Please what?”

Dasha’s temper flares and she struggles again against the rope. “I swear to _god.” _

Solas takes a step back and laughs. “My, my, such a mouth on you. Such a little temper.” He wrenches her mouth open with three fingers, she gasps at the intrusion. “Do I need to find something for this pretty mouth to do?” Dasha shakes her head, but her temper hasn’t subsided. It’s a strange feeling, like a facsimile of anger. Thrilling when she remembers this is all a game, tragic too. It bites. “You’re not convincing me, Dasha.” She tests her teeth on his knuckles and his eyes glitter. “Oh, I’d be careful there, little one. I’m not sure this is a game you want to play.” She bites a little harder and he adds a fourth finger, jerking up her jaw. “If you bite me, I swear to the gods, you won’t be able to sit for a week.” Dasha considers, for a moment, if that’s something she wants. But it’s a moment too long and he pulls his fingers roughly from her mouth. Solas adjusts the rope and, all at once, she’s hurtling downward. She cries out, shaking when he pulls the rope taut again. Her body expects a whiplash that never comes, every muscle pulled taut.

She’s level with the fly of his pants, tied so she can’t comfortably look up or down. She watches as his hand slides down to free his cock. It looks almost painfully hard, the tip glistening with precum. It’s easy to forget that he’s only human, not some stoic god, and it’s a little nice to see that she does, in fact, have an effect on him. He taps his cock against her lips. “Open.” She keeps them stubbornly closed. “If I have to force this jaw open, Dasha, you will sorely regret it. Make no mistake that it is well within my ability to ruin this throat of yours.” She lets her mouth fall open. Solas crouches down until their faces are level, holding her jaw in his hand. “Tongue out.” She frowns, confused. “_Tongue. Out._” Dasha does as she’s told. He spits in her mouth and she’s so stunned that slams her mouth shut, eyes wide. Her stomach lurches, that hot, lightheaded feeling settling inside of her. She wants him to do it again. But he doesn’t give her time to ask. Solas stands, pumps his cock once, twice in his fist, then slides it between her lips. “Take all of it. And not a single sound out of you.” 

His cum tastes clean. It’s a bizarre thought and Dasha frowns at it. But it’s true. Solas is impeccably clean, impeccably well-groomed. So much so that even when she’s choking hard around his cock, it’s not all that unpleasant. She wonders if telling him that would be a compliment or out of line, but doesn’t have much time to consider it, before he’s moving her again.

In one smooth motion, he raises the rope until her face is even with his. He smiles, just briefly, wiping some cum from her lip with his thumb. “That’s my good girl.” Dasha closes her eyes so he can’t see the way his voice softens them, the way she wants to preen under his praise. His hands make quick work of the knots on her legs and he guides her down until she’s hanging upright, arms above her head, the rope under her breasts keeping her secure. He takes her thighs in his hands and wraps them around his waist. His pants are still low on his hips and she can feel his softening cock against her pussy. It’s intimate, that feeling, their bodies so close, but he doesn’t let it linger, takes two fingers and swirls them around her opening. “Do you want to cum, Dasha?” She nods, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Oh come now, you were doing so good. What do I require?”

“Verbal answers, sir.” He hums his approval. She takes a deep breath. “Yes, sir, I want to cum.”

“Oh come on now,” he teases, breath hot on the shell of her ear, “you can do better than that. Ask nicely.”

“Please.”

“Do you think you’ve earned it?”

She looks up at him, just blinks. Her brain is on fire. “I-I don’t know,”

His eyes soften and he presses a kiss to her jaw. “Oh now, that isn’t very convincing. I asked if you’ve earned it, Dasha.”

“Yes, I’ve earned it. Please.” She presses harder against him, desperate for contact, for touch.

“Please, again? I like please.”

She moans, canting her hips toward him. “I’ve been good. I’ll be good.”

His reply is no louder than a whisper. “You are good, Dasha. You’ve always been good.” Her body shakes around him. He slips two fingers inside, thumb finding her clit. “Let me show you how good you are.”

He’s spooling the rope when he says it, so quietly that she almost doesn’t hear. “Stay the night.” Dasha pauses, halfway through shimmying back into her dress.

She looks over her shoulder at him. “What?”

He looks up from his work, the skein of rope resting on one knee. His expression tells her nothing. “Stay the night, Dasha. It’s late.”

She glances around the room. “Here?”

Solas chuckles. “Of course not.” She watches him stand, watches him straighten the buttons on his shirt. He slides his sport coat back over his shoulders. “We can pick up any necessary toiletries on the way.” He cocks his head at her. “Is that alright?”

Dasha swallows hard. She’s still feeling a little tingly, a little off-balance. And the idea of curling up beside him, of spending a whole night, fills her with dangerous longing. “Yes, um, sure. Okay.” She crouches beside the lounge and starts to dig through her purse. “I just, um, I just need to let my roommate know.”

“Of course.” She flashes him a nervous smile when she stands, one he returns with a sly smile of his own. She clears her throat, fingers trembling a little as she opens her phone.

_Hey Josie. Staying over at Zev’s tonight. Got a little too drunk to try and navigate the train. Love you <3. See you in the morning. _

Is that convincing? Is that good enough? She opens a message to Zevran.

_Hey long story, but if Josie asks, I’m with you tonight, okay?_

His response is immediate.

_k bitch what are you up to ;) ;) _

Dasha glances up at Solas. He’s fussing with his watch, probably trying to give her a little privacy. It’s a strange show of consideration, one she’s not really sure how to take.

_Solas asked me to stay the night. _

Her phone buzzes twice in quick succession.

_???!!!_

_R u serious_

Dasha tucks her phone into her purse.

She’s a little disappointed when he takes her to a hotel a few blocks away. It’s a nice spot, sure, but the degree of separation taking her here implies rankles her. If he’d taken her to his apartment, she would have been able to fill in more of him. To try to understand him through the set dressing of his life. But more than that, it would have been a gesture more intimate than anything he’s done to her body. He probably knows that too.

The doorman nods to both of them as they head into the foyer, Dasha’s heels clacking against the tile floor. It has a high atrium ceiling, old brick walls. The bar across from the front desk is bustling and Dasha tucks herself closer to his side. She doesn’t want to be spotted. She wants desperately to be spotted. A headache is working its way through her temples.

Solas books them a single room, asks for one with a nice view. He tells the clerk behind the desk that it doesn’t matter if the room has a queen or two doubles. The clerk watches Dasha flinch when he says that. She wants to reach out and take his hand. She wants to cry. A sharp, pathetic feeling is sloshing around inside of her. That strange homesickness again. Solas glances over at her, eyebrow raised. It’s an unspoken question. She nods. _I’m fine. _

Their room is nice but a little cramped. Smaller than Solas’ room in the dungeon, the bed taking up most of the space. Solas has disappeared off into the bathroom. She can hear him brushing his teeth. She’s already brushed hers, dressed in a spare shirt from the club and nothing else. It’s domestic, almost, much more than she prepared for. And she finds, as she stalks around the room, that it’s more than she wants. It feels hollow. He doesn’t even know where she’s from, but he knows how long she brushes her teeth for. Doesn’t even know what she does for a living, but knows how she tastes. The bed looms behind her. They’ll both be sleeping in it tonight, but how? She imagines piling pillows between them, imagines he probably wouldn’t like it if she ended up entangled in his arms in the morning.

Dasha crouches down in front of the mini fridge. She opens it and runs her fingers along its contents. She finds a bag of peanut m&ms beside one of the mini wine bottles. It’s heavy in her hand. Her stomach twists. She puts it back like it bit her. Solas pads back into the room dressed only in a pair of cottony pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. He nods toward the bed. “Time to sleep.”

Dasha wakes gasping. The darkness so complete that she is sure, for a moment, that she has gone blind. But then Sera’s face is hanging above her, her eyes dark and churning. She opens her mouth and a stream of thick, black liquid pours drips onto her lips. Dasha screams, clutching at the sheets, at herself. The movement wakes Solas and when he reaches across the bed for her, she propels away from him. The floor hits hard, knocks the wind out of her. Solas is on his feet in an instant. When he switches the light on, she flinches away from it. A nightmare. That’s all. Like all the nights this week. Sera’s face had been so vivid, but now in the light of their hotel room, the fear has faded.

Solas sniffs, kneading his eyes with his palms. “Gods.” He looks around the room, a little unsteady on his feet. “What’s going on?”

Dasha rises to her knees. “Nothing, sorry.” She swallows hard. “I just had a nightmare.”

“Oh,” he exhales, running a hand down his face. “Alright.” He frowns. “Are you okay?”

Dasha rises to her feet and tries, as inconspicuously as possible, to take her own pulse. It’s calmer than she expects. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Solas settles back down on the bed with a groan. “Gods, you frightened me. I thought…” He chuckles softly to himself. “Well, I’m not sure what I thought.” Dasha stands limply at the foot of the bed. Solas glances up at her. “Come back to bed.” She doesn’t move and he holds out a hand. “Come here.” She walks stiffly toward him. The dream’s made her heavy, slow.

When she’s close enough, he pulls her to him, rougher than she expects, and lays them both down. Her back is flush with his chest and every muscle in her body has tensed. She shivers. “Gods, you’re so cold. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I woke you up.”

He hushes her, kissing along the nape of her neck, nipping softly at her throat. “Do you need something to help you get back to sleep?” He doesn’t sound like himself.

She flexes her fingers against her bare thighs. Her skin is freezing. She isn’t totally sure she’s not still dreaming. “Like what?”

He slips his hand down her stomach, fingers lingering on her pubic hair, threatening lower. “Tell me to stop if you want me to stop.”

Dasha hesitates. Her thoughts are moving so slow it’s hard to make sense of what’s happening. Solas pauses. She feels his hand twitch to move away when she reaches for it, holds it in place. Dasha whispers like they aren’t alone in the room. “Please don’t stop.” Solas grunts as he rolls over her. He hooks two fingers inside of her in one, fluid motion, his thumb searching for her clit. She lays back, letting her hair splay around her head. The pillow is warm from where he left it. “What are you doing?” He doesn’t answer, instead kisses down the column of her throat, painting a line down her body with his lips.

“Open your legs, Dasha.” His voice is faraway, heavy with sleep. He bites gently at the hollow of her hip. “Open.” She lets her legs go slack, stares up at the ceiling. She can’t bring herself to look at him, sure that if she does, she will beg him to stay, to take her home with him. Solas nudges her knees open and drags the backs of his fingers almost lazily down her pussy. “You’re so beautiful. I hope you know that.” He still doesn’t sound like himself and she almost tells him that when he puts his mouth on her. Dasha gasps. He’s slow and rhythmic at first, tongue toying with her clit and then, after a moment, he starts to devour her. Throws his whole body into it, her hips lifted off the bed, his hands tight around her thighs, holding them open. She closes her eyes, lets the bed come up around her, lets him guide her body down whatever path he wants to take it. She sounds like a little animal, mewling and groaning as he works her body. Dasha feels him walk his free hand up, finding hers where it lays limply at her side. He notches their fingers tightly together.

It’s a shock, at first, when he’s inside her. Taboo. Off-limits. More scandalous than anything they’ve done together in the club. For all their heavy talk about fucking at the café, Solas had put a pin in it. Telling her in a clipped voice that they would revisit that particular stipulation once they’d gotten _better acquainted. _

Dasha doesn’t feel particularly well-acquainted, but she can feel him thick inside of her now. His chest pressed to her chest, their skin hot against each other. One of her legs is hooked over his hip, the other splayed back by the palm of his hand. She whimpers into his ear and he melts into her, panting into her chest. He’s gentler than he expects. Soft touches, a slow but steady rhythm. Sleepy, almost. Intimate. Like making love. It cuts to the quick.

Dasha wakes up disoriented. Bright sunshine spills into the room. It’s unfamiliar. Until it isn’t. And the night washes over her. They’d fucked. Actually fucked. Slept together all night in each other’s arms. And now the bed is empty. Her throat feels dry, her stomach painfully empty.

She can hear the shower running in the bathroom and suddenly all she wants to do is flee. And she’s starting to, pulling her dress over her head when he emerges from the bathroom, towel wrapped around his hips. She pauses, taking in the full effect of his mostly naked body in the light of day. He’s muscular but lean. Wiry. Jut a smattering of hair on his chest. Everything about him is appealing and her heart aches. “Going somewhere?”

“I…um…I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do. If you wanted me to stay or…”

Solas runs his hands over his scalp and comes to stand across the bed from her. “Make no mistake, Dasha, you will always know what I want you to do.” He picks up a glass of water from the bedside table and takes a sip. “Because I will tell you.”

“Oh.”

He frowns at her. “Did you want to leave?”

“I…” She can tell he’s picking her apart, trying to analyze where this conversation is going. “No, I just…I just…can we clear something up?”

He clasps his hands again behind his back, the posture strangely formal for a man dressed only in a towel “Of course.”

“You, um, said you weren’t sure about, um, penetrative sex.” She shores herself up trying to sound steadier. “ You said we would need to revisit it after we’d been…um…” She trails off because she’s about to say _together longer_ and can’t think of anything else to replace it with 

“Yes, I remember.”

“We fucked last night.”

He frowns. “Yes, we did. I want to apologize.”

Her heart drops. “You don’t need to…”

He holds up a hand. “No, it was reckless of me to engage with you that way.” Solas sighs. It’s an odd, indecisive sound coming from him. “Did it upset you?”

“What?”

“Our…interlude.”

She scrunches up her face. “Are you kidding? I mean, no, of course not. You asked…no, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Alright.” Sets the glass back on the table and exhales. “I’m glad I haven’t upset you.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re breaking up with me?”

Solas laughs and the sound does nothing to reassure her. She tries to stop her hands from shaking. “Technically, we are not together.” Dasha recoils and she sees a flash of regret in his eyes. “It was a joke. Perhaps a poorly timed one, but no, Dasha, I have no intention of ending this arrangement today. I just…”

“You just what.” She can’t keep the strain out of her voice. Her words tumble together.

“I’m fond of you.” Dasha has nothing to say to that and the way he’s said it sounds so final. He seems to think so too, rounding the bed to stand in front of her. He leans down and presses a kiss on the corner of her lips. It feels like a dismissal. “Are you available next weekend?”

There are only a few feet between them, but the distance feels enormous. “Yeah.”

“Good. You’ll come to the club as usual.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good.” He turns his back to her, begins searching for his clothes “I’ll call you a cab.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading guys<3.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Been a while, huh? Thanks for sticking with me. I'm hoping to have like, semi-regular, updates on this come mid-December.

“Staff dinner.” Bull brushes past Dasha on his way to the kitchen. She’s arranging silverware beside two other waiters, the restaurant filled with the sound of metal clinking against metal. The white-collared shirts in their uniform feel extra stiff tonight, extra starched. Bull's got another Hawaiian shirt on, this one with the sleeves cut off raggedly around his shoulders. The buttons look like they’re about to pop open where they’ve strained over his massive pecks.

Dasha sets her work down on the polished wood bar. “What?”

Bull pokes his head back through the kitchen’s swinging door. “Hour till opening. Staff dinner in five, maybe ten.”

“I ate already.

Bull fixes her with a hard look. “Everybody eats staff dinner.” Dasha swallows hard.

“Maker’s incredible flaming balls, are you dying in there?” Dasha pulls her fingers from her throat and glances up at the door. Two more hard raps and then Dasha is sure she can hear Dorian huff from the hallway. “Listen, give me a head’s up if you think you’re dying so I can call in an emergency replacement.”

“I’m just peeing, holy shit.” Dasha stands, heading over to the sink to let the water run. She’s topless, her work shirt hanging on the coat rack by the door. It would have been too risky to keep on. The splashback from purging could have been catastrophic. Dasha splashes water onto her face, looking back up at the mirror. She frowns. There’s vomit on her left nostril. She brushes it off with a grimace.

Dasha slips out of the bathroom, adjusting her bow tie. Dorian is waiting for her, leaning against the wall. The back hall where the bathrooms are is even darker than the rest of the restaurant, lit by sconces that cast an almost spooky glow onto the ornate wallpaper. “Nice to see you think so highly of me.”

“Business is business, my dear.” He checks his watch. “Doors open in two minutes. We’ve got reservations booked until close.” He glances up at her. “Be on your toes.”

Dasha tries to shake off the lightheaded feeling that has settled over her. It should fade in a few minutes. She just needs a glass of water, just needs to let her angry stomach settle. “When am I not?”

The first two hours are a blur. Her body is robotic, her smiling unceasing. Her cheeks ache. The headache that started when she’d bent herself over that toilet spreads down into her sinuses, into her stiff neck. Solas had been away at a conference this past weekend and Dasha hadn’t realized until then how good her body was starting to feel after each session. Her chest aches at even the thought of seeing him again. He’d been alarmingly brief the first couple of days after they’d had sex. Answering only in one or two words when she’d send him her daily food diaries. Maker, at least _that _had been something she’d finally mastered. Even if the act of googling another person’s daily intake made her feel strangely like an alien. Or a baby. But then, after days of near silence, he’d called her. She’d been so surprised to see his incoming call that she dropped her phone on the subway floor, wiping the grime off her screen before calling him back when she got off at her stop. Maker, _that _had been a strange conversation. Heavy silences and conversation that meandered, going nowhere. He’d sighed a lot, sounding so uncharacteristically unsure. Like _he _was the one transgressing some invisible boundary and then, as if something had shifted inside of him, he’d asked her, before they hung up, if she was really doing alright. Said it with such transparent tenderness that Dasha had to hold the phone away from her ear for a beat, try and regain her suddenly ragged composure. She’d felt, humiliatingly, on the verge of tears. His curt dismissal after she told him that she was _fine, thanks _had almost been a relief.

Dasha ducks back behind the bar, takes a sip of the seltzer water she keeps next to the maraschino cherries, and slides her phone out of her back pocket. Her tables are pretty well-settled. For a few minutes at least. That sweet spot when they’re still picking at their appetizers, just before the entrees start flying out of the kitchen. She scrolls through her phone, relishing the anonymous darkness in this corner of the bar. The first is a message from Solas reminding her to send him her food diary after work. Dasha tries to ignore how her chest warms to the idea of him sitting somewhere in his office, or his apartment, thinking of her, wondering about her. Stupid, is what she’s being. Maker, Zevran’s words have been rattling around in her head with a frightening velocity lately. She doesn’t want to think about it, scrolls through her emails instead. It’s mostly junk. Online coupons and about a dozen messages from academic listservs she can’t bring herself to opt-out of. And then at the bottom, sent around 2pm LA time, that familiar name.

_Annette Roberts <[aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu)>  
_ _ Re: New York City   
_ _ Dasha, I heard from one of your colleagues that you might be  
_ _ staying in New York. As you know, I have several connections that_

Dasha deletes it without even opening it, raking her fingers through her hair. Fuck that. _Fuck that. _She takes another long sip of her seltzer. The bell dings from the kitchen. She screws the cap back on her water and heads back out into the restaurant.

She doesn’t really notice him at first. He isn’t different in any substantive way from any of her other patrons tonight. Wealthy. Discerning. _Temperamental. _He’s eating alone, but it’s a weeknight and more than a few businessmen come here after getting off work to have a little quiet time. He orders a Campari on the rocks, a drink weird enough that the bartender raises both eyebrows when Dasha brings the order back and the man grills her for a little too long about the ingredients in the fiddlehead risotto, but as far as remarkable goes, Dasha’s more likely to remember the clear mail order bride situation at table three than him. That is until, as she’s leaving the bill on his table, he reaches out and grabs hold of her wrist. She freezes when she does it, absolutely still like a rabbit cowering from a predator. She can feel her pulse jumping in her throat. He has long fingers and each one is heavy with a gold ring. Dasha looks up at him to find that he is watching her with a wide smile on his face. He’s older than she first thought. Maybe in his late fifties. A handsome, angular face with closely cropped salt and pepper hair. He unravels his fingers from her wrist, one by one, but Dasha is still frozen in place, half bent over the table. The man smiles even wider and daps his lips with his cloth napkin. He leaves a faint reddish stain behind, the Campari staining one side of his mouth. “I had a wonderful evening.” He nods at her. “Thank you.”

Dasha swallows hard, finally regaining enough of her composure to straighten herself out. She backs a half step away from the table. “Of course, sir.”

“I’m not sure I caught your name.”

“Dasha.” It’s out of her mouth before she can even think to refuse him.

He smiles again. “_Dasha_.”

She waits for him to leave behind the bar, chewing her nails. He’s taking his sweet time, gathering up his things, shrugging his suit coat back up over his shoulders. Every so often he’ll glance up at her and smile. Dasha pretends she doesn’t see.

Dorian appears in her peripheries, heading back from the wine cellar. Dasha straightens her bow tie on instinct, scrambling for some excuse as to why she’s just standing around when he slides up almost conspiratorially beside her. “Are you okay?”

She frowns. “Yeah? Why?”

“Saw you get manhandled from across the restaurant.”

Dasha laughs. “Hardly manhandled.” And it’s true even if it was a little odd. Still, she’s shaky from purging, feeling delicate as spun glass these days. She probably looks rattled. “I’m fine,” she assures him even as she spares a glance over at the man’s table. He’s cleared out. She hears the hostess bid him a good night.

“Yeah, well, take ten, alright. I’ll cover your last table.” She quirks an eyebrow at him, but he’s already sauntering down past the bar.

Dasha has to count the tip money three times before it sinks in. He’s left her two fifties. She glances over her shoulder, half expecting to see him barreling back toward the table. But he’s long gone. Dasha smooths out the bills and pockets them, tries to extract that strange barb of guilt that’s settled in her chest. The gesture feels like the kind of thing she’ll have to repay. It’s not really something she has the energy to think about, though, and she pats her pocket, as it for luck.

She’s about to head back to the bar when she realizes that he’s folded his receipt into a neat square. _Odd_. She glances back to make sure no one is watching her and carefully unfolds it. Inside, a note written in a careful, neat hand.

_A pleasure to have you as my waitress.  
_ _I hope we may have the occasion to meet again  
_ _Gereon Alexius  
_ _212-656-3000_

Dasha stuffs the note crumpled into her pocket. She feels nauseous.

It’s a cool, wet night. She’d seen rain beating against the windows during the start her shift and now, even though the rain stopped hours ago, she can still smell it in the air. Steam rises from the vents in the alleyway, blanketing the concrete with an artificial fog. Dasha closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s quieter in the alleyways than anywhere else in the city, like little pockets kept away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world. Which is why the voice beside her nearly sends her through the roof. “Hi.”

Dasha clutches her chest. “Andraste’s tits, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

The kid beside her just kind of shrugs, his eyes a little glazed. “Sorry.”

Dasha straightens up, smoothing out her slacks. “It’s whatever.”

“Okay.” He’s young, whoever he is, probably still a teenager by the looks of him. His clothes are kind of shabby and he looks almost catatonically stoned. His milky eyes rimmed in such a deep red that looking at it makes Dasha’s own eyes itch. His pale hair hangs limp around his gaunt face, his skin pallid, sort of yellowed. “Something bad just happened.”

Dasha blinks at him. “Um, what?”

He shrugs, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “Didn’t it? Probably somewhere, anyway.”

Dasha leans against the brick wall. It chills her even through the stiff fabric of her uniform. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A heavy silence falls between them. Dasha glances over. She’s positive she’s never seen this kid before but there’s something about the way he’s standing back here that makes her feel like she knows him. From somewhere. “Do you um work here?”

He doesn’t look at her. “Yeah, I wash dishes. And you’re the new waitress Dasha.” It isn’t a question. His voice is dreamy, reminds her a little of those drifter kids who’d hang out on the Haight. Midwestern transplants who blew all of daddy and mommy’s money out in LA. Except…not quite. He has a sort of authenticity about his grunge that’s hard to fake. He sighs. “I’ve been going through a lot.”

Dasha wracks her brain for how the fuck this has even come up, feels like she’s missed some whole other conversation. “Um, I’m sorry to hear that.” Dasha glances over her shoulder toward the restaurant’s back door, hoping someone will come out and handle whatever this situation is quickly turning into.

He’s quiet for a moment, then turns to look at her and says, “I’m Cole. It’s just kind of my thing. To go through a lot.”

Dasha snorts. “I feel that,”

“I thought you might.” Dasha frowns. She didn’t think she looked _that _bad last time she checked herself out in the bathroom, but she’s not about to ask him for clarification. Cole smiles softly to himself, looks sideling at her. “Dorian’s going to ask you to come over tonight.”

“What?”

“I can just tell.”

Cole is, in fact, right. Whatever that means. As they’re folding up napkins and sorting out tips, the Samba music Bull's playing wafting out from the kitchen, Dorian swipes a bottle of wine from the rack and asks Dasha if she’s got any plans after work. She hesitates. Because she should say that she does. She should take the train straight home. She should take a long, hot shower, eat a couple pieces of fruit, and get some much-needed sleep. But she doesn’t really want to go back to Josie’s place just yet. Doesn’t want to lay on her shitty mattress watching her phone, hoping it will light up, listening as the muted classical music Josie plays to help her sleep slips under her door. “I live nearby,” Dorian says, filching another bottle and loosening his tie.

And he does, really. Only a few blocks. Hell of a posh neighborhood even if you can spread your arms and touch all four ends of his place. He makes up for the size by filling the space with some of the nicest furniture Dasha’s ever seen. A dark leather couch, mahogany wood chairs, ornate glass light fixtures. Dorian turns a humidifier on as soon as they come in the door, drops a couple drops of essential oil into the water and soon the whole place smells like lemon. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t like that. Dasha feels a little feverish, keeps her arms close to her body. Her stomach growls.

Cole’s come too, though, as far as Dasha can tell, Dorian didn’t ask him too. He seems to be right at home anyway, perching on top of Dorian's leather couch and cracking open a beer he’d produced from his worn-out messenger bag.

Dasha slumps into one of those ornate chairs and digs her phone out from the bottom of her purse. She’s supposed to text Solas but just the idea of manufacturing another food diary exhausts her. “So,” Dorian grunts as he works the cork out of the wine. “You got somebody?”

Dasha looks at him over her screen. “Getting right to it, huh?”

“I like to get to know the people I work with.”

“I think there’s probably a million other questions you could ask me that would be just as relevant.”

“Sure, but not as interesting. Besides,” he nods toward her phone, “you’ve got a look on your face like you’re waiting for _the _text.” He takes another swig. “So…do you?”

Dasha shrugs. “Sort of.”

Dorian shakes his head. “Oh boo, _sort of_ lets them have all the power”

Dasha fixes him with a hard look. “Sounds like that’s coming from experience.”

“It is.” Cole pipes up. He’s still nursing his beer and it occurs to Dasha he’s almost certainly not old enough to be drinking it. “That’s why Bull still fucks other people even though Dorian’s in love with him.” Cole says it almost lazily.

Dorian nearly cuffs him. “No one asked you, idiot.”

Cole flinches, looks around like he’s surprised he just said that out loud.

Dasha takes a sip of the wine Dorian stole. It tastes like sugar. She grimaces. Her feet are killing her. “Sounds rough.”

“Everything’s rough, this is New York.”

Dasha snorts. “New Yorkers bring their misery onto themselves.”

“So who brought your misery onto you?” Dasha hesitates, then rolls her eyes. “West Coast, best coast huh?”

“Who said I’m from the West Coast, huh?”

“Your tan. Your vocal fry.”

Dasha laughs, a little bitterly. “Well, I’m from New Mexico, so.”

“Close enough.”

“Dasha lived in LA though.” Cole offers.

She narrows her eyes at him. “How did you know that?” He nods to her purse. Dangling off one of the zippers is a blue and gold Bruin keychain. She’d forgotten all about it and she covers it instinctually with her hand. “Maybe I’m just a tourist.”

Dorian whistles. “Yeah, sure. Who broke your heart in Los Angeles, girl.”

Cole frowns, his eyes a little hazy again. “I don’t think it was that.”

“Maker, can we not?”

Dorian laughs. “Yeah, kid, give us a break huh?”

Cole smiles, almost sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t you have to be home anyway?”

He shrugs. “Not really.” 

Dorian shakes his head, taking another sip of wine. “Fucking hooligan kids.”

Dasha checks her phone again. No new messages. She swallows hard, frowning, then tucks it back into her purse. “So how often do you guys do, um…” she gestures vaguely, “this?”

Dorian shrugs. “Often enough. Figured you’ve worked enough shifts that it’s worth bringing you into the fold.”

Dasha scoffs, taking another pull of the wine. “I’m honored. Really.”

Dasha’s a little too drunk for this honestly. A little too unsteady on her feet. She weaves through the late-night crowds, wishing hard she’d taken Dorian up on his offer to crash on his couch. But she’s in a weird mood. Has been in a weird mood, honestly, since she and Solas fucked. Dasha kneads at her eyes. She feels all at once like she might cry any minute and like she might never be able to cry again. She doesn’t want to go home but she doesn’t want to go anywhere else really either and every cell in her body is vibrating. An awful, desperate feeling. She wants to pull herself out of her skin. She’s already so frayed at the edges. It wouldn’t be hard really. Just a quick, firm tug and it would all unravel.

Dasha yelps when her phone vibrates. The guy smoking a cigarette out in front of the subway station glowers at her. She glowers back, then opens her phone.

_Your food diary, Dasha. _

Dasha exhales. Some dark, manic part of her wants to call him. Call him and just sob. What a nightmare. What an embarrassing fucking nightmare that would be. She brushes a few stray hairs from her face.

_Sorry sorry just got off work. Will text when I get on the subway_.

His response is immediate.

_It’s nearly two am. Call a cab_

She snorts. Yeah, not very fucking likely.

_I’m fine really_

Another quick vibration.

_It was not a request_

Dasha frowns down at her phone, a bright flash of anger sparking inside her. He’s got a lot of nerve, really. Where’s the foreplay in bossing her around in the middle of the night, huh? Is that what gets him off? Like he gives a fuck how she gets home.

_I can’t really afford a cab right now._

She’s stepping onto the platform when her phone buzzes again. It’s not a message this time.

_Venmo  
_ _Solas Harrel sent $100. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading <3.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags, y'all. Take care of yourselves <3.

And just like that, she has his name. His full name. Dasha hesitates, phone in hand. She glances around the station. It’s mostly empty this late at night. A homeless man sleeps quietly against one of the pillars, his arms crossed over his chest, the slightest smile on his face. Serene almost. Dasha rubs at her eyes. She’s been sleeping enough. More than enough, probably, but she wakes up almost every morning with heavy limbs, her mouth like it’s full of cotton.

A couple passes by her, probably around her age. Dasha watches as they twine their fingers together, heading toward the stairs with the meandering steps of two people in on a secret. The man stops as they wind around one of the pillars and pulls the woman into his arms. Their kiss is long and sloppy, their hands search each other, fingers pulling, dancing along skin. Dasha can’t watch, feels bottomless when she tries. They’re still kissing when she finally manages to turn away. She breathes hard through her nose. His name. _His full name. _It’s a relief and it isn’t. It’s a terror and it’s not. It’s more loaded than it should be. Dasha sighs again. She feels deflated. Work and grief and this new terrible feeling she gets whenever she thinks about Solas have worn her out. Maybe some part of her really thought that if he ever revealed something more about himself then everything would just click together. A tiny morsel to keep her sated. But everything just feels emptier than before. A harsh reminder that he doesn’t even know her last name, has never once asked. He doesn’t know what she does, doesn’t know where she’s from. He doesn’t know shit about her and all the times he’s asked anything have been all part of this elaborate fucking foreplay she’s signed herself away to. Dasha bites angrily at her nails, the salt on her skin makes her stomach growl. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her work slacks, disgusted. Her brain is simmering, a tremor rolling through her whole body, just under the skin. She wants to lay down, to get some real, deep sleep. She wants to be held. Her heart aches. She checks her phone.

Solas’ notification blinks up at her. She decides, swiping it away, that she’s not going to call a cab. Fuck him and fuck his hundred dollars. Dasha wipes furiously at her cheeks. She isn’t sure when she started crying or if this really even is crying. The subway station is so damp. Everything feels like an echo and when her thoughts start to quiet down, she feels hugely, insurmountably alone. The couple is gone, the homeless man fast asleep. She wants to text Sera, wants to call her. That awful homesick feeling rushes up inside of her again, that great wound inside of her tearing at the seams of itself. The train comes speeding down the track, humid air spilling into the station as the doors creak open. Dasha puts her headphones in. She tries to think about nothing at all.

It’s impulse more than anything. Driven, mostly, by the fact that even though it’s nearly four am, she hasn’t slept. Not a wink.

She’d picked up a diet coke from the bodega a few blocks down, just something to settle her angry stomach. But the caffeine has hit her like a fucking freight train and has given her already racing thoughts something to really chew on.

The neon light from the building across the way spills through her window, onto her bare skin. She’s in nothing but her underwear, the night warm enough that she discarded her nightshirt. It’s in a heap beside her bare pillow. She shifts on her mattress. Still no sheets. Andraste’s tits, what a monster. Who the fuck lives like this?

Dasha kneads her eyes again, pressing hard, craving pain. _His _pain. It feels canned to think like that, like something from a movie. But she’s needy. Wants something, _anything _to distract from the tumult roiling inside of her. Maker, she doesn’t even know what hurts, doesn’t even know where this pain is coming from. Maybe it’s coming from all over.

Dasha sits bolt upright, tired of just laying like this, and fumbles in the dark for her laptop. She doesn’t want to be alone with her thoughts anymore. She finds it tucked a little under her mattress on the floor, hefts it into her lap, flinching at the light when she opens it. Dasha hesitates, but not for long. His profile on the Columbia website is the first result.

Solas Harrel graduated from Brown University, _magna cum laude, _in 1996. Dasha fishes around for her phone and quickly does the math. He’s probably 45, give or take a year or two. She sets her phone down and takes a long breath. Two decades older. That shouldn’t make her longing more intense. It does. She looks again at the picture of him on the faculty page, her fingers almost unconsciously reaching up to trace the outline of it. It’s just from the shoulders up, but even like that he cuts a striking visage. His eyes pale and watchful, the hard lines of his face accentuated by the sun streaming onto his skin. Whoever took the picture has made him laugh. Dasha can see it in his eyes, in the slight upturn in one corner of his mouth. The sweater he’s wearing makes him look warm. Dasha flips back to his CV. 

There’s a couple year gap right after college where he lists nothing, but then it’s immediately back into the fold. Studying classics at Princeton by 1998. Three fellowships, two awards. A yearlong funded dig in Athens. His master’s thesis, on something called _apocalypticism, _quickly turned into an article. Then two more. He matriculated in 2004, started tenure track at Columbia the same year. Published his first book a year later, also on whatever the fuck _apocalypticism _is, this time in ancient Rome. He’s a full professor now, some lengthy endowed chair and Dasha wishes that her heart wasn’t slamming against her chest. It’s all so startlingly, unpleasantly familiar. A language she learned to speak by heart, one she’s desperate to forget. She rolls her shoulders, that wild energy still coursing through her. A headache has started right between her eyes, spreading down in her sinuses. Her shoulders ache. A sharp pain in her stomach sends her rocking quietly forward, fingers kneading the spot. The first rays of sunlight spill over the tops of the buildings and Dasha feels ragged. She scrolls down, finds his long list of courses, feels a quick twinge of jealousy.

She can imagine him in a lecture hall, behind a podium, striding back and forth in front of a tall chalkboard, hands clasped behind his back. She imagines he commands attention, imagines too that there is something soft about him for his students. His desk is probably a dark, polished oak, heavy with stacks of papers. He probably has so many books. Has them lining his shelves, piled on the floor, beside his chair. She wonders if he’s neat there too or if that scrupulousness she’s seen so many times in the club doesn’t extend to his intellectual work. And then it dawns on her, as she imagines him, fingers tented, listening intently to one of his students. He definitely, absolutely, cares more about any one of those students than he does her. They are his minds to mold and she is just a body. One of many. The thought cuts through her, right to the quick. She stands, suddenly unable to sit in her bed another second, and pulls her shirt roughly over her head. Dasha hunts for her jeans, pulling them up her legs so hard that one of the belt loops tears a little.

She has to get out of here. She has to get out of here or she’ll start crying and she doesn’t have it in her to start again. If she lays back down on her bed and waits for the sun to rise over her, she’s never going to get up again.

It’s a warm day already, the air still and clear. The kind of easy, soft sunrise that reminds her, just a little, of California as it creeps along the street, casting long shadows then chasing them away with its golden light. Dasha cracks open one of the two energy drinks she just bought from the sleepy man behind the counter of the corner bodega. The first sip tastes like bile. Nausea settles in her stomach. She flops down on the sidewalk, leans back and tries to take a deep breath. Her chest feels so heavy and little lights have started to spark in her peripheries. She closes her eyes, trying to give them at least some rest, but in the darkness, all she can see is Sera’s face. Fuck this. _Fuck _this. Dasha’s eyes fly open. She scrambles for her purse, so shaky that she nearly drops her phone onto the concrete. There’s only one person she knows who’s probably up now, who won’t even flinch if she shows up to his place like this.

_hey _

Dasha tapes her feet on the sidewalk, restless, then drains the rest of her energy drink.

_you up? _

Her phone buzzes.

_ya always _

Dasha swallows hard. She glances once way down the street, then the other. A steady stream of cars work their way past her, headed toward the financial district. The street sweepers have cleared out, replaced by groggy looking businessmen.

_can I come over?_

Another buzz.

_wut up _

Dasha chews her lip, her fingers hovering over her screen, trying to figure out what the fuck she should even say.

_i’m fucked up. _

His response is immediate.

_o shit on what _

She kneads at her temples.

_myself mostly _

He doesn’t respond. She heads toward the subway station.

It’s not what she hoped for. Zevran greets her with a frown at the front of his building. He looks like he’s just gotten out of the shower and she spots a dark hickey just under his jaw. The energy between them feels tense before they even open their mouths.

Zevran works his jaw, looking a little off-center at the sidewalk. “We have to talk.”

Dasha frowns. Her weariness tripled on the train ride here. “You know, let's not. I'd really _really _rather just-“

“We need to fucking talk.”

His apartment smells like fucking and Dasha toes a condom wrapper aside as she heads in. It looks somehow dingier than she remembers it too and she heads over to the posters above his bed, eager to avoid the rest of the room, drawn back by her memory. The devil still looms above her. No less terrifying than it had been all those weeks ago. Dasha hears him crack open a beer. She glances back, the golden morning light filtering through his narrow window turning murky once it hits his stained, worn carpet. “Maker, a little early don’t you think?”

“Fuck off.” He eyes her, takes a long pull of the beer. “But seriously, what are you so geared up on?”

“Nothing honest.”

He grimaces. “Scary.” Dasha shrugs him off, glancing back at the poster. She notices, for the first time, that there’s a symbol printed in the corner, a dark circle with white dots in each geometric petal. She thinks she might recognize it, squints to get a closer look. Yeah, yeah she’s definitely seen it before. It’s the same symbol Bull has tattooed on his thigh. Dasha frowns. What the hell is that about?

“You shouldn’t have stayed the night with him.” Dasha whirls around. Zevran’s looking at her darkly from beside the fridge.

“We stayed at a hotel. It’s not like I went to his place.”

“Doesn’t make it better.”

She brushes him off. “Well, he asked me to so.”

“Yeah and I’m sure he’s really regretting that now.”

Dasha stiffens. “Wow, what the _fuck.” _

_“_I’m just trying to fucking protect you.”

Dasha scoffs, incredulous. “From _what?” _

“From your fucking self!” He’s raised his voice now, muscle jumping in his jaw.

“That is _really rich _coming from a guy who just cracked open a fucking beer before six am.”

He rolls his eyes. “Like that has anything to do with it.” 

“You know what they say about glass houses.” Zevran throws his arms up, clearly agitated. Dasha sighs, hands crossed over her chest. “Does nobody fucking date in these circles?”

“Sure they do but he’s not dating you.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” She can’t keep the irritation from her voice.

“Because I want you to fucking understand what you’ve gotten yourself into!” Dasha opens her mouth, but she has nothing to say. They just stand in silence, watching as the room lightens with the rising sun. Zevran finishes his beer. “It’s my day off. Want a line?” He breezes past her, pulling a cloudy little bag out from under his mattress. It’s bare too. Peas in a pod.

“Coke?”

He sneers at her. “No, baking soda. Andraste’s tits, of course it’s coke.”

“Fucking shit, cool it, will you?” Zev winces. Dasha shifts where she’s standing. Dread washes over her “Where’d you get it?”

He glances up. “Does it matter?”

“Kind of?” He cocks an eyebrow at her, settling in over the counter, portioning out the lines with a little blade. “ Heard there’s shit cut with fentanyl in the neighborhood.”

“From who?”

She holds herself even tighter. “Does it matter?” In truth, she’d overheard it from one of the busboys on her break the week before. Just the mention of it had shaken her up so badly she’d locked herself in the bathroom until dinner rush.

Zevran’s laugh is bitter. “No, it really doesn’t, because I don’t give a shit if it’s cut.”

Dasha bristles. “Yeah well, you fucking should. That shit _kills _people.”

He looks blankly at her, a sinister nothing falling over his eyes. “Didn’t kill you.”

Dasha recoils. “Stop it.”

“Didn’t fucking kill you!” He’s yelling now, almost shouting. Dasha fights the impulse to cover her ears like a child.

“You’re being a dick.” Her voice is quiet, shaky.

He shrugs, suddenly deflated. “Maybe. It’s just kind of funny right? You and Sera blow the same shit that night and she ends up in a pine box and you end up here.”

Dasha slips her purse back over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go. I don’t need this.” She tucks her phone back into her purse. “Least of all from you.” He just shrugs. She lingers in his doorway, hand on the knob. “You need fucking help.”

He doesn’t even look up from the counter. “So do you.”

Dasha rushes down the rickety stairs of his building, breaking out onto the sunny sidewalk like a bird careening out of a trap. Her heart won’t stop pounding. She leans against the outer brick and holds her head in her hands, trying to breathe. Her phone buzzes and lets out a shaky exhale, fishing around in her purse for it. She swallows hard. Of course, it would be from him. Of course.

_Come to the club tomorrow evening. Same time as usual. _

Dasha wipes angrily at her cheeks, smearing tears. Her phone buzzes again. She startles, but it’s only a text from Josie.

_Hello! Good morning! Are you already at work?_

Another buzz.

_Let’s make it a great day <3_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3. I hope you have another update pretty quickly.


	14. Chapter 14*

She goes to him. Comes when he calls like a good little girl. What else is she supposed to do? She bends over for him. Cums dutifully on his fingers, gags obediently on his cock. And maybe he can feel the way she’s pulled back from him, feel that something is just slightly off, because he pushes her hard. Produces a long, thin reed of a cane from that closet in her peripheries. Introduces her to that bright, brutal pain. And it works, because of course, it does. Because he must have done it a hundred times before on a hundred different bodies. The pain all down the backs of her bare thighs is a good distraction from the bottomless way she’d felt when she saw him standing just where he always did beside the bar. There had been a distant coldness in his quick wave that makes it easy to take his punishment, to let him push her hard past her instincts. More than once, she bites her safeword back between her lips. It’s not the pain, really. He very clearly knows what he’s doing in that regard. But it’s the quiet. The silent, brutal repetition of the hits that make her suddenly very certain that he is trying to upset her, trying to provoke a reaction. She can’t even remember what she’s being punished for.

And so, when he finally trusses her up in that same, smooth rope – her body spinning midair, hands tied behind her back, shins tied flush with her thighs – she releases all her muscles, hangs heavily in the rope. Defeated. Solas runs a riding crop along the tender skin of her inner thighs. Dasha shivers weakly. She’s wet, dripping, brutally aroused despite everything. Her cheeks tight from crying, the cane pulling something almost childlike, from her. Surrender, maybe. She’d cried with each hit. Like a little animal. Mournful. Desperate. And even through all this violence, she is still aching, _aching _for his touch. So desperate for it that when he lays his hand softly on her hip, she cries out with such forlorn intensity that she feels his fingers stiffen. “Look at me.” His voice is almost a shock after so much silence. Dasha whines, shakes her head weakly. Normally, by now, everything would be glitteringly clear, but Dasha feels murky. Her body feels like a prison. “Dasha, look at me.” She raises her heavy head and can feel just the ghost of his fingertips under her chin. Her eyes flutter a little wider. For a man that’s just laid into her like he had, he looks absolutely unperturbed, unbothered. And yet, there’s something soft in his eyes. Softer than she’s seen in a while. “You’re a beautiful girl, do you know that? You’re _my_ beautiful girl.” She says nothing, just hangs her head, and he hits her hard on the thigh with the crop. Dasha cries out, her body rocking forward, the rope creaking. She’s whimpering now, tears streaming down her face. She can feel him hesitate and then the soft skin of his hand as he cups her cheek. “Dasha.” Her breath is ragged. She’s hurting now for real, all her joints, all her muscles. “_Dasha._”

She shudders and then, like the ghost of her former self has come rattling the halls, she starts to talk. “Have you ever read _The Bridge on the Drina_?” She can’t see him pause, but she feels it, feels the air slow. “Ivo Andric. 1945, I think.” Dasha’s just babbling now, her eyes half-closed. Solas says nothing, but he moves his hand down to her flank, running his fingers softly along the skin there. She hears him set the crop down. “I read it.” She’s stuttering a little, unsteady. “In college. There’s…there’s a scene. In the beginning maybe.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know.” Solas runs his thumb along her hip. “It’s about a man who’s been impaled.” She shivers. A quiet part of her brain is surprised Solas hasn’t put a stop to all this rambling and if she couldn’t feel his touch she might think he’d left the room. “It goes on for pages and pages. It’s…so graphic. There’s a point…a point where they put the stake through the skin of his back. All the way along his spine. Just…slowly. And he screams and screams and, eventually, the pain is so much he vomits. He’s in…so much pain.” Solas’ fingers flex against her skin and she can hear his breathing now. For maybe the first time. Dasha shivers again. She can remember the words arranged down the page, remembers her own revulsion, fascination. Why this particular memory is bubbling up now, she hasn’t the faintest idea. She feels a twinge of pain in her own shoulder, it rolls down her arm. “It takes him days to die. Days and days. And….and by the end, the sounds he makes are so animal, inhuman.” She heaves a little. Her face is a mess of tears and snot. Spit. Some hers, some his. “And I thought, as I read, and in the days after, if there was a moment where this man stopped feeling like a human being and felt like nothing but a conduit for pain.” She flinches when Solas cups her face in his hands and he waits until she settles again, until she leans into his touch, before he starts to stroke his thumbs gently against her cheeks. She’s starting to feel that familiar weightlessness, that clarity. Dasha opens her eyes to meet his. They’re so soft, curious. It makes her breath go ragged.

Solas trails one of his hands down her body. He rolls it, the back of his hand skimming along the taut planes of her belly, the tips of his fingers over her hip. “Is that what you feel like, Dasha? Like a conduit for pain?” Dasha gasps when his hand hunts between her legs, his thumb running just lightly over the seam of her. “Would you like to feel like a woman again?” He slips two fingers inside of her. She sighs against him, thighs twitching. She rocks against his fingers. He smooths his free hand onto the curve of her hip, leans in to kiss the junction of her jaw. She squirms, searching for his lips. He lets her. So softly, so slowly. Their lips hot as they meet. She’s ravenous. He cups her jaw, working his fingers inside of her. A gentle tempo. “Let me make you feel like a woman.”

A silence has fallen between them, different than the ones he so carefully calculates during a scene. She can almost feel him thinking as she slips her dress back up over her shoulders. He nods silently toward the granola bar he’d laid out for her on the table. Dasha rolls her eyes but unwraps the bar. Once she’s taken a couple bites, Solas returns his attention to spooling the rope. Dasha sits on the divan beside him, wincing a little as she does. He’d smoothed a herbaceous smelling balm all along the welts on her thighs and ass, but they still smart. He told her the pain would subside in a day or two.

Solas clears his throat and Dasha looks up at him. He’s still spooling the rope, his long, careful fingers winding through it. The muscles in his bare forearms flex with each movement and Dasha traces them up until they disappear into the rolled up sleeves of his white button-down. The soft light in the room accentuates his cheekbones, the sharp line of his chin. He is so beautiful. The thought makes her heart hurt.

“I haven’t read _Bridge on the Drina, _but I’m familiar with it.” Dasha swallows hard. She’d been hoping he’d just let her babbling go. It had been bullshit really. Something her overwhelmed brain had chewed up and spit out. He tries to meet her eyes, setting the rope quietly on the table beside him. “Did you study literature in college?”

“No.” Her voice is stiff. The silence is heavy. Dasha fidgets where she’s sitting. Isn’t this what she wanted? For him to ask her questions? But she can’t get Zevran out of her head. This sick, sick idea that these questions are only for his pleasure, some strange, obscure foreplay. But he’s looking at her so softly, hands clasped between his knees, bent so their faces are level. He’s asked, hasn’t he? Maybe he really wants to know. Maybe she can just pretend he does. “I was learning Czech. On a grant. I was in a Slavic literature in translation class,” she swallows, “when I read it.” This feels more exposing than anything he’s done to her body. Worse when she glances over to see him leaned back, appraising her. 

Solas cocks his head and she can see the professor in him, see the way he’s looking at her like she’s a lost, little student of his. “And what did you hope to do with Czech?”

Dasha flinches. “Um.” Her lips tremble and she looks up at him almost pleading, like he’ll tell her what he wants to hear, make up the story for her. Any lie she could tell feels like a betrayal to some older, better version of herself but the truth is so thorny. And if she starts to talk about UCLA, about her program, about running away, she knows she’ll cry. And she doesn’t want to cry in front of him, not like this. Her body intervenes. That horrible pain twinges again in her shoulder, just at the base of her neck. Dasha winces, gasping quietly, her fingers ghosting over the twisted muscle.

Solas sits bolt upright, leaning forward. “Are you in pain?”

Dasha kneads at her shoulder. “No, it’s fine.”

“It’s clearly not.” She grimaces at him. He brushes it off, coming to sit closer beside her, examining her shoulder with an almost clinical intensity. “The way I positioned the rope on your body should not have aggravated your shoulder.”

She brushes him off. “It’s always like that.”

His eyes flit up to meet hers. “Always?” She says nothing. He looks again at her shoulder, smoothing his fingers over the skin. His skin is so warm “Do you work at a desk?”

“I used to.” She shrugs. “Sort of. Not anymore.”

He nods then moves her to face away from him, puts both of his hands on her. “Relax your shoulders, Dasha.”

She glances back at him. “What are you doing?” Solas brushes her hair forward until it comes tumbling down over her chest, baring her skin to him. He starts in with his thumbs, kneading them along her shoulder blade. The movements are careful, well-practiced. Intimate. It feels, dangerously, like sweetness. “What are you doing?”

He hushes her. “Taking care of you. Relax. You’ll feel better once I'm finished.” No. It’s too much. She’s going to cry. She’s going to tell him that she can’t stop thinking of him, that she dreams of waking up beside him. That she’s so, _so_ angry with him. Dasha wriggles away. Solas sighs, clearly annoyed. “Dasha, please. Let me take care of this.” He holds her firmly in place by her shoulders. He has to feel the way her heart is pounding against her skin. _Has to. _“You are so tense and it will be a hindrance to future sessions if you don’t let me-“

“Detonography.” Solas freezes, his hands now up in surrender, no part of him touching her. Dasha stands, smoothing out her dress. “Sorry, I-“

“Never apologize for using your safe word.” But he isn’t looking at her, he’s dissecting her, picking her to pieces. She can see the gears turning in his head, his mouth turned down into a deep frown. “I apologize for…” He cocks his head, eyes staring into the distance, suddenly lost in thought. He takes a deep breath and when he looks at her again, his gaze is hard. “Well, I imagine it’s time to call you a cab, isn’t it?” He pats the divan, groaning a little as he stands. “You were a very good girl this session. Well done.”

“Thank you,” Dasha gulps, “sir.”

He frowns. “Solas now. Never sir after session, you know that.”

“Sorry.”

“Never apologize,” his jaw twitches, “to me. For trivial things like that.” Dasha’s staring at him now, rooted in place. He reaches out, more hesitant than she’s ever seen him. She watches as indecision crosses his face before he finally closes the distance and smooths some hair from her face. “Message me once you’re home safely.” His adam’s apple bobs, mouth still drawn into a tight line. He knits his brow. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Dasha’s voice is barely above a whisper.

His thumb softly traces the line of her cheekbone. His eyes have receded, a cold hardness in them that she’s only seen once or twice in the heat of their sessions. And then warmth again. And then fear. Just the barest hint. “Good girl.”

“You gonna eat something, Peaches?” Dasha startles, the restaurant coming quickly back into view. It’s a white table cloth affair. One of Josie’s favorite places, so expensive the menu doesn’t have prices. Tucked on a busy corner in Manhattan, technically part of the stately brick hotel where it’s housed, most of the patrons wealthy out of towners staying in the rooms upstairs. A pianist plays softly in the corner by the tall windows, the music drifting, meandering. Both Josie and Varric have stopped eating, staring at Dasha now.

She blinks at them, then settles, trying hard to smile. “Maker, sorry. I zoned out.” She makes a big show of taking a couple bites of her quiche. “I love the food at this place.” It doesn’t sound convincing even to her own ears, but Josie is busy scrolling through her email again before she even finishes the sentence. More and more visibly agitated with each email she reads, rapping her nails against the tablecloth. Only Varric seems to be really paying attention, but he’s moving quickly onto something new. “Have either of you heard from Zev?”

Josie bristles, finally looking up from her phone. “Zevran and I are no longer speaking.”

Varric chuckles. “Well alright then, Ruffles, you tell ‘em.” He glances over at Dasha. “What about you, huh? Heard from everyone’s favorite hot mess lately?”

Dasha shrugs. “Uh, no, not really.”

Josie frowns over the lip of her coffee “I thought you said you were with him last night.”

“Oh um,” she swallows hard. _Fuck._ “I mean, um, I was. I thought Varric was talking about like today, you know? I haven’t heard from Zevran today.”

Josie furrows her brow. “Sure, okay.” She stands, dabbing at her lips with her napkin. “I’m going to the lady’s room. Tell the waiter to put the meal on my account, alright?”

It’s a warm, clear day. The bottom of Dasha’s sundress flutters in the soft breeze. It soothes the welts blooming across her ass. Stark reminders of a night that she’s still trying to unpack. A passing businessman gives Dasha’s legs a long once-over, winking when they lock eyes. Dasha crosses her arms, looks away.

“Andraste’s tits what a bunch of bores. You’d think I was cracking jokes about the makerdamned blight the way that maître d looked at me” Varric comes barreling out of the restaurant, hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“In the restaurant?”

“Where else?” Dasha just shrugs. “So, the sex club, huh?”

Dasha frowns. “What?” He nods back toward the restaurant. “Oh yeah. I was there last night. You probably knew that.” Varric chuckles. “Still haven’t figured out how to tell her.”

“Can’t blame you there. How’s it going?”

Dasha reaches up to knead the sore spot at the base of her neck. “It’s going.”

“That all I’m going to get out of you?”

She looks sidelong at him. “Before you draw me up a contract discussing royalties, yeah, that’s all you're getting out of me.”

Varric laughs. “Alright, alright. I probably deserve that.” She cocks a playful eyebrow at him. “I definitely deserve that.” He takes a deep breath. “So what’s the deal with you, huh?”

Dasha glances over at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep since the womb.”

Dasha scoffs. “Yeah, well I work in a restaurant now.”

“Yeah what is with that?”

Dasha bristles. “Wanna clarify?”

“You living out some foodservice fantasy you never told me about?”

Dasha shakes her head, fighting a smile. “Can we drop it, Varric?”

“Today? Sure. But you know I love a good story and I want to hear the one about the girl who flew too close to the sun and landed back in New York City.” Dasha rolls her eyes. Varric checks his phone. “Well, I don’t have time to wait around. You tell Ruffles I said thanks for the grub.” He nudges her. “And eat some real breakfast why don’t you?”

“Quiche is real breakfast.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Then go eat one. For real this time.”

Dasha frowns, but he’s gone before she can think of a retort. Disappearing into the foot traffic on the sidewalk. Josie comes out in a rush of color, the tie of her silk shirt flapping in the breeze. “Where’s Varric?”

“Had to go. You okay?”

Josie laughs, brushing back her thick, dark curls. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. Just fielding a minor crisis at work ”

“You figure it out?”

She nods, smiling softly to herself. “It was good to get breakfast. The three of us. We should do this more often.”

“Yeah, Yeah. I had a really good-“

But before she can finish, Josie is wrapping her in a tight hug. The warm contact is a shock and Dasha has to fight the urge to pull away. She wants to cry, wants to just start absolutely bawling because the tenderness is too much. The touch like a burn. “I know it’s complicated,” Josie says, tightening her hug, “but I’m so glad you’re back in New York.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo. Mind the tags, guys. We're in the weeds here.

She notices his fingers first. She’s been in such a rush, such a blur since they opened the doors for dinner service, that even though he orders the same weird drink as last time she doesn’t clock that it’s him. It’s only when she sets it down his glass, cherry red liquor sloshing over one side, that she notices those rings. They have an almost sinister tint in the restaurant’s low light, the drink reflecting eerily on the gold. Dasha blinks once, twice, boring holes into the tablecloth with her eyes. She’s woozy - purged hard after Bull’s staff dinner – and her vertigo only gets worse when he reaches over and pats her gently on the back of her hand. She takes a steadying breath and looks up at his face.

It’s the same man because of course it is. Gereon. She’s surprised that she even remembers his name. But she does. And he remembers hers too. “Dasha. Lovely to see you.” His smile is Cheshire. He pats her hand too hard.

Her smile doesn’t falter even as her heart starts to pound in her throat. “Good evening, sir.” Her fingers have gone numb. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

He only gets the drink. Sips it slowly, thoughtfully. Dasha watches with increasing trepidation from the servers’ station. She and Dorian exchange a meaningful glance, but he says nothing, just slips off toward the wine cellar. Dasha takes a drink of seltzer and leans back, the metal of the bar fridge behind her chilly even through her starched button-down shirt. She watches as she lays a pair of twenties down on the table and heads out in the warm evening. His watch glints like a headlight when the sun hits it.

It’s the rings again. She’s drawn to them, like she can’t help herself, like some trailer park impulse she can’t shake. It makes her fingers twitch. Makes her feel that specific shade of inferior that’s she’s felt in waves all her life and that feeling is so intense that it takes her longer than it should to match the hand up with its body. And then another to realize that he is here, outside the restaurant long after they closed. Gereon. Her spit tastes like bile.

Bull and Dorian left together in Bull’s beat up jeep. They’d offered her a ride, but she’d wanted the walk. Wanted to clear her head, stretch her legs. But now, with a dawning horror, she realizes that even on this packed sidewalk, she is alone now with this man. Dasha straightens up, smooths out the lapels of her shirt on reflex. “Something I can do for you, sir?”

He’s been staring out at the busy street, but at the sound of her voice, he turns, smiling with just one side of his mouth. “What a polite girl you are.” Dasha swallows hard. “Did you just get off your shift?” Neither of them turn to look over at the darkened restaurant.

“Yes,” she edges past him, “have a good night.” She expects him to fade into the crowd, but he doesn’t. She glances behind her to see that he hasn’t slipped into one of the sleek, dark-bodied cars idling beside the restaurant. To her horror, he doesn’t seem to be hailing a cab either. No, he is, instead, walking calmly but steadily after her. Dasha fights the urge to break into a run. In fact, she slows. Some bizarre, polite impulse has her waiting for him to catch up.

“Heading home then?” And then it’s so familiar. So familiar it’s almost funny. It’s every man who’s ever shouted at her from a car, every man who’s crowded her on a bus. Except here, the rules feel different. Because she’s older. And she knows better. Except for when she doesn’t. Because she’s taken apart that solid foundation she’d build brick by brick and now she commands no authority. No interest. Well, maybe some interest. She watches as Gereon drags his eyes up her legs. She says nothing about it. Maybe it’s those rings. More money on one finger than she has in her entire checkbook.

And so she’s intimidated. Thoroughly. Falling hard back into that old networking persona she’d cultivated in graduate school, in college. It’s nauseating. And disgustingly rote when she glances over and smiles, a little strained, and says, “yeah, just heading home.”

He is matching her stride now. He’s not as tall as Solas, not as elegant, and Dasha isn’t even sure why she’s making the comparison. He’s stockier though even if his well-tailored suit has done an admirable job of hiding it, but Dasha can see how his muscles strain the shoulders of his jacket as he walks. There’s a violence there, surely. “And where does a beautiful woman like you call home?” He shifts his hands in his pockets, making sure that the face of his watch peeks over the fabric of his pocket, making sure she can see the diamonds around the face. Dasha says nothing but it doesn’t really seem to matter. He isn’t really asking her, she knows that. It doesn’t matter what she says. “Funny.” He says, striding still beside her, “it seems our destinations are in the same direction.” He has unnervingly straight teeth. She’s sure, by the way they shine, that they’re veneers and the thought makes her own mouth feel slimy. Dasha opens her mouth, but no words form. Her tongue is useless in her mouth. She just keeps walking. He does too.

The watch and the rings were her first clue, but the unsteady way he boards the train, grimacing as he looks around, makes her absolutely sure that this is his first time on public transportation. And it’s that thought, meandering as it is, that makes her realize, with a jolt, that she’s allowed him to get this far. Allowed him to start to follow her home for real. She swallows hard and glances over to where he’s standing. “Are you, um, going home?”

He smiles then his face twists just slightly in disgust before he takes hold of one of the poles. “Yes, what a lovely coincidence.” Dasha has nothing to say to that. Just grabs onto the cold metal of the pole, bracing herself a little as the train lurches forward. She glances around. It’s a packed train. Shoulder to shoulder. Busier than it would normally be on this line, this late at night. But Dasha doesn’t feel any less alone. Everyone’s on their phones. The few who aren’t have their noses tucked into paperbacks or messy newspapers. Most of them have headphones in and, for the very first time, she realizes that she could start screaming and maybe no one would even notice. They’re certainly not noticing now. No one on this train gives a flying fuck how a rush of vertigo hits her when Gereon brushes some of her hair off her shoulder. A few strands get tangled in his rings and he yanks at them, pulling his hand away with a frown. Dasha tries not to flinch. “Do you like being a waitress?”

She almost doesn’t hear him, tries to school the indignant look that passes over her face once she does. Sera used to brag about her to all her pretentious art friends. _Dasha’s an academic. _Her smile wide and toothy. _Dasha’s incredible. _What an incredible buffer that had been, to be able to call herself that. Dasha kneads the base of her neck. It’s aching again, pain shooting into her shoulder. “Yeah, sure.”

Gereon doesn’t seem to be really listening, even as he nods at her response. “My ex-wife was a waitress.” He inclines his head, almost thoughtful, “for a time.” Then he grins again, flashing those unnerving teeth. “My son is about your age, actually. Another funny coincidence, no?” Dasha nods, not sure why she even feels the need to. She wonders how young she looks to him. “But women,” he smiles, “don’t you think,” there’s a glint in his eyes, “age so differently than men.” For some reason, that does it. That’s it. She’s at peak capacity. Overloaded. Dizzy and exhausted and nearly on the verge of tears.

“This is my stop,” she says, feeling blinding for the door. It slides open under the tips of her fingers. Gereon says something but she can’t hear it over the air rushing into the station. She stumbles off the train. The doors slide shut. The train pulls away. Dasha starts to walk.

Her peripheral vision has darkened, her heart still pounding violently just under her jaw. She walks quickly, ducking out of the dull, concrete station and onto the street. She can’t hear over the rushing in her ears and the white-hot panic that fills her when she thinks of him getting off the train and following her nearly sends her doubling over. Her fingers tremble, her chest feels like it’s stuttering, like it might vibrate right off her body. Maker, she’s lightheaded, can’t remember the last time she ate something and kept it down. Her head is _pounding. _

Dasha sees a bus shelter, its glass dingy and covered in tags. She sits down hard on the bench underneath. The metal feels damp even though it hasn’t been raining, cold even though the air is still warm from the sunny, summer day. Dasha rubs hard at her legs, trying to work sensation back into her body. She feels murky again, grimy almost and when she tries to take a deep breath, she has to force air into her lungs. She holds hard onto her knees and looks out from the glass shelter. The sidewalk is littered in trash. Empty bottles and torn wrappers. Newspaper and a beer can so smashed it’s ripped in the middle, the jagged aluminum catching the light. Dasha has no idea where she is. Not even the slightest clue. Manhattan’s glittering lights are off in the distance, the Brooklyn Bridge so far away she has to squint to make out its outline. Hell, she doesn’t even remember which train she got on, didn’t even check the direction it was going. She could be in fucking Jersey for all she knows. And, fuck, it’s honestly looking like she might be. Only a few cars snake along the dark road and she’s only heard one train rumble along the tracks behind her since she sat down on the bench. There’s one of those big box stores across the street. A Kmart, maybe, though she hasn’t seen one of those in years. And honestly it looks abandoned, just a spot of darkness against the horizon. The only light, when headlights catch on grocery carts scattered across the empty parking lot. It all reminds her, just a little, of some of the places out by where she grew up. More ghost than town. And then, in that melancholy darkness so tinged with strange memory, she starts to panic. And then she starts to cry. Like a child. Helpless and terrified and lost. She cries with her whole body. Cries so hard she starts to choke, coughs until her lungs ache. Something close to hysteria has descended onto her and that hole inside of her feels all-consuming now.

Dasha doesn’t even realize she’s calling him until it’s on the last ring and, by then, it’s too late. “Dasha.”

Solas sounds like he’s been sleeping, but not for long. His voice is stern, just a tinge irritated, but just hearing it at all is an enormous relief. Until it isn’t. Regret barrels into her. _Andraste’s fucking tits. _There are so many other people she could have called. People who might have actually come to get her. Her heart aches. She sniffles. “I’m sorry. Solas, I’m so sorry. I-“  
“Dasha.” She straightens up like he’s there with her, like she’s withering under his stern gaze. He sounds a little more awake, but just as irritated. “Why have you called me?”

“I…I don’t know.”

He sighs. “_Dasha_.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop that.” She stiffens at the admonishment. “It’s very late to be calling me.” She hears him breathe heavily through his nose. “Are you at home?”

“No.”

“Then where are you?”

Dasha glances around again, nothing looks familiar. “I’m…not sure.”

His voice changes in an instant. Suddenly sharp, suddenly urgent. “Dasha, what’s going on?”

“I…I…” And then she starts to cry again. That childlike fear crashing into her again, so strong she can’t withstand it. She slumps on the bench, holding herself tightly. Pathetic. _Pathetic. _

“Dasha, where _are _you.” A sound like a wail slips out of her mouth. She pitches forward, cradling her head in her hands. She’s never cried like this. Not at the hospital, not at the funeral, not standing beside the grave on that cold morning. Never in her fucking life has she cried like this. “Dasha, Dasha, please. Please calm down.” She can’t, she really can’t. “Breathe.” She tries to, her chest is tight. “_Breathe.” _Maker his voice is so soft, almost honeyed as he speaks to her now. And the sound of it uncoils the terror in her chest. She can almost feel his hands. Those nimble fingers. Before she’d so violently stopped him, he’d worked her muscles so skillfully, kneading out the tension like he knew her body by heart.

Dasha takes a deep, shuddering breath. She feels clearer now. Less afraid, but that space the fear cleared out is quickly filled instead with a bright, sharp humiliation. “Maker, Maker. I’m sorry.” Her voice sounds a little thin, like she’s been yelling. Dasha wipes furiously at her cheeks. “I’m sorry I called.”

“Stop apologizing.” His voice is harsh and he must immediately realize it because he quickly adds, “you don’t need to.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” When he speaks again, his tone is much more measured. “Do you have any idea where you are?”

“I think I might be in Jersey.”

“Gods, Jersey?!” She’s not sure she’s ever heard him exclaim something, never heard him out of control enough to. “How did you end up there?”

“I got off the train early. I just…” Dasha shifts on the bench. What the hell is she even supposed to say? Now, her head a little clearer, it feels a little silly to even bring Gereon up. “I got off the train early.”

“Are you safe?” She hesitates. “_Are you safe?_” He emphasizes each word.

“Yes.” A beat. “I think so.”

“Is it yes or is it I think so?” She can tell his temper is fraying, can tell too that he’s straining to keep his voice even. 

Dasha takes a deep breathe, flexing her fingers against the tops of her thighs. “It's yes.”

He exhales. “Okay,” another beat of silence, then he tells her in that soft voice, “you’re alright.”

Dasha sighs, loosening her shoulders. “I know.” She sounds like a kid.

“Are you going to be able to find your way home?”

“Yes…I…yes. I’m just gonna get back on the train.”

“_Dasha_.”

“No, no it’s fine. I can figure out my own way back.” She hesitates. “I shouldn’t call you about this stuff.”

He sounds genuinely surprised. “What do you mean?”

“About just…non session stuff or whatever. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“You can call me about-“

“I'm not usually like this.” It comes from nowhere, spilling out in a rushed jumble.

She hears him sigh. “You shouldn’t be alone this late at night.” And for a moment, her heart starts to pound because it feels like he’s hesitating, feels like maybe he’s going to ask her to come over, that he’s going to come get her himself. And the thought makes her feel soft and warm and vulnerable and “I’ll call you a cab.”

Her chest constricts. She swallows hard. “Okay.” A beat of silence. “Thank you.”

‘There’s no need to thank me,” He sounds distracted, like he’s typing something into his phone. “Message me when you’re safely home. I’m _serious._”

“Yeah, of course.”

She hears him hesitate again. “Goodnight, Dasha. Get some sleep.”

“Goodnight.”

Dasha exhales, slumping down, her hands hanging between her legs. The street is unbearably quiet. She can almost hear her heart. Her phone buzzes. She glances down at it.

_Venmo  
_ _Solas Harrel sent $100_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3. You guys have been so wonderful and welcoming!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! My Christmas gift to you guys is a couple trigger warnings for a chapter that got a little darker than I originally expected. (And also a reminder that this fic does, in fact, have a happy ending). 
> 
> TW: graphic depictions of eating disordered behavior, discussion of death

He’d told her to dress casually. And to come to the club in the late afternoon. A strange departure from their normal routine that has stuck like a burr in her mind since he texted it to her the night before. It’s all she can think about on the train ride over, her mind running over and over what he could possibly have planned as she walks down the sidewalk, the concrete sizzling under the high July sun. This could be, she thinks, some kind of test. Some kind of new game. He does seem to love disarming her, but given her performance over the phone just a few days ago it seems almost cruel for him to be changing up their routine like this. And she’s too busy oscillating between vague anger and the rush of the thrill he gives her that she’s nearly halfway down the alley toward the club before she notices that he is waiting outside for her. Dasha stumbles to a stop, feeling suddenly unsteady on her feet, like a little animal caught in a pair of headlights. But then she settles. Solas hasn’t seen her yet, is gazing up toward the bright, brutal summer sky. He’s in a pair of well-fitted jeans, a light sweater that he’s rolled up to his elbows. He’s a long, elegant line of a man and Dasha takes the opportunity to look at all of him here in the sunlight. She’s seen him for so long in pieces – his hands, his fingers, the curve of his jaw – and always in the dark. It’s a revelation to see him out here in the middle of the day. Not since their very first meeting in that café has she seen him like this. And so much has happened between then and now. The voyeurism is a thrill. But it quickly wanes and she feels cold even in the summer heat, lonely. She continues down toward the club, toward him.

The sound of her loafers on the asphalt draws his attention, and when he sees her, Solas breaks into a smile so warm that Dasha stumbles a little. He pushes off the brick wall and begins toward her. Dasha demurs, feeling suddenly very small. “Hey.”

“Hello, Dasha.”

“This is um,” she glances around the alley, “different.”

Solas chuckles. “Yes, I imagine it is.” He straightens up, nodding toward the club’s dark door. “The club is having an event today. It was rather last minute. Not to my taste. So,” he exhales, smiling, “I thought we might do something else.”

“Something else.” Dasha’s mouth feels a little dry. She tries to figure out why this has her so disarmed, why she feels so suddenly adrift.

“Yes,” he reaches out and runs his fingers along the collar of her shirt. Well, Josie’s shirt actually. An airy, white blouse Dasha took from her closer and tucked into a pair of high-waisted shorts that feel suddenly too short, very exposed “I thought we might spend some time at MOMA.” Dasha’s heart starts to pound. She should say no, suggest something else. Because, holy Maker, she knows _so _many people who work at MOMA. The sheer density of potential nightmares waiting for her behind those doors is staggering. But her mouth feels sealed shut. “I figured you might be interested.” He looks heavily at her, “you seem like you might enjoy art.”

That rankles her. She wants to tell him that she more than _enjoys _art. That she has her fucking master’s degree in art, lives and fucking breathes it. That she is still, technically, ABD at one of the most prestigious programs for art history in the country. But instead, she just shrugs. “I like art as much as anybody, I guess.”

They’re taking the scenic route, as far as she can tell. Solas has them winding through narrow, tree-lined Chelsea neighborhoods, pretty, brick brownstones towering over them as they walk. There are a few kids out playing, a couple women out walking dogs, a few pushing prams. Dasha feels strange here with him, walking through this neighborhood. There’s an intimacy in this, walking side by side, dressed so casually. She’s wearing more clothes than she usually does around him and yet she feels so much more exposed. Dasha spares a glance over at him, finds him looking serenely out in front of them. She doesn’t see a single bead of sweat on his skin, nothing disrupting his placid surface. Dasha wants to say something, wants to make the kind of small talk that she knows will wreck her. Little intimacies like that are too much, much too much. But the silence hanging between them has started to become unbearable. Solas puts her out of her misery. “Are you well?” She raises her eyebrow, questioning. “After your late-night phone call.”

Dasha flushes. “Oh, um, yeah. Thanks.”

He nods curtly and lets it drop. It might be a mercy or it might simply be disinterest and her chest aches at the idea of the latter. But she_ does_ feel better than she did that night. A little at least. Just his proximity has soothed something inside of her and the safety she feels at his side elicits a quiet panic in her. Because it’s flimsy. Because it’s fleeting.

He clearly takes the train a lot. Has a sort of zen about the whole affair that makes it obvious he’s lived in New York for a long time. That fleshes him out even more and now Dasha is busy imagining him on the morning train to Manhattan, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, book open as he holds onto the train’s pole, unfazed as it rocks to and fro. Would he read a novel or something relating to his field? Would he be interested in nonfiction? Or if it is novels he likes, would they be contemporary or classic? She’s so busy conjuring him up in her mind that she has stopped paying attention to the train and when it takes a hard turn she loses her balance, nearly tumbling toward the door. Solas catches her, pulling her back, flush to his chest. “Careful.” He’s grinning, it’s a tease. He pulls her closer to him, wrapping an arm surreptitiously around her waist. “Can’t take you anywhere, can I?” His voice has changed into that low, rumbly tenor he uses with her during sessions and Dasha feels her body stand at attention at the sound of it. He kisses just behind her ear. The fingers of his free hand worry the spot where she’s tucked the blouse into her shorts, threatening to yank it out, expose her bare skin to his touch. “What if I fucked you right here?” He breathes it into the shell of her ear. She shudders against him, reaches up to wrap her fingers around the arm holding her. “Think you could stay quiet?” He nips at her. “No, I don’t think so.” He kisses at the back of her jaw, “my,” another kiss, “_expressive_ little girl.” She clings to him. He is so warm and she can feel his hard body through his shirt, the solidness of him feels like a gift, something to cling to. When he lets her go it feels like a tragedy.

Dasha’s careful to dodge the curator. The woman is lingering, straight-faced, near the entrance and Dasha ducks closer to Solas to obscure her face. She isn’t sure the woman would recognize her out of context like this, but they have met. More than once. If Solas notices that she’s hiding, he doesn’t say anything.

They wander through the museum’s airy entrance, stopping finally once they reach the tall wall of windows overlooking a leafy veranda. It’s not too crowded today, the heat sending most people inside, but Dasha spots a few people winding around the sculptures in the courtyard. She spots too a Henry Moore on the far end of it, a low hanging branch brushing it’s looping, vaguely erotic form, the smooth bronze of it glinting in the sun. She’d seen some of his work at the documenta in Kassel two years ago and she almost tells Solas that. Just casually, offhand, nearly tells him of how she’d had too much wine after a lecture on pornographic absolutism and leaned accidentally against a priceless Gustave Courbet sketch. It made for a great story once the abject terror wore off. One that Sera had laughed so hard at her sides had ached. Dasha shakes the memory from her head.

“Well.” She says after a few minutes of standing quietly around.

Solas cocks his head at her, a wry little grin on his lips. “Well?”

Dasha stiffens, looking from him to the vast museum landing then back. “Do you not…have a plan?”

“I thought I might let you take the lead.”

“I’ve never been here before,” she lies, not totally sure why she feels the need to.

“Ah, well, then I suppose we’ll have to trust your intuition.”

Dasha swallows hard. “Um, sure, okay.”

He nods toward the set of lucite stairs against the far wall. “Shall we?” 

They end up in a wing back at the far end of the museum, secluded almost, like Dasha can’t stand the charade they’ve got going. Together but not together. He hasn’t touched her once since they entered the museum, but every so often will shoot her glances so heavy that her heart will stutter. So she’s broken off from him, at least a little, and is leaning heavily on one of the railings, when he clears his throat and speaks. “These are interesting photographs.”

She looks over to where he’s standing and, before she can stop herself, corrects him. “They’re actually performance art.” He glances back at her and she knows she should stop, but she can’t. Just cannot. “Lorraine O’Grady was a performance artist.” He glances up at the photos again. “She’s the artist. It’s a documentation of a guerilla piece of hers from 1980. That’s why the composition is strange. There are hundreds of these photographs, actually. The curators are the ones who decide which ones to use and which order to put them in.” She smiles, even though her heart is still pounding. It feels so natural that she has forgotten where she is, who she is with. “In fact, most scholars agree that the work is by three artists. O’Grady’s performance, the anonymous photographer at the performance, and now again, the curator who controls how we experience it all these years later.” 

He’s silent for a moment, this turns to look at her full-on. “You’re very knowledgeable.”

Dasha stiffens. The room comes back into view. Andraste’s fucking tits, _why _did she have to go on like that? Solas is standing watching her, his hands clasped again behind his back. “Oh uh, it’s just…what it says on the tag.”

Solas bends over to read the tag and to Dasha’s horror, it only has the artist’s name and the date of the piece. He raises an eyebrow. “What was the performance piece about?”

Dasha swallows hard. “I don’t know.” She does. In fact, she’d written one of her first academic papers on O’Grady’s subversion of identity, her send-up of eroticism, of the torture of visibility and the anguish of obscurity, of pain in the way her body was so vulnerable and so exposed. Dasha swallows hard. She feels, suddenly, like she might cry.

“Oh,” Solas straightens up, “that’s too bad.”

He buys her a coffee from the little kiosk on the veranda beside the courtyard. The sun has slipped behind some clouds and the temperature cooled some and something comfortable has fallen beside them. It doesn’t feel quite normal, but, for the first time since maybe the very beginning, Dasha lets some of what Zevran told her go. Lets herself feel that this is, maybe, some kind of date. He could have just canceled right? He didn’t have to bring her here. And when she takes the first sip, she realizes that he’s remembered how she likes it from their first meeting at the café. The pain of longing that rattles through her is muted. Because the day is beautiful and he is here with her and they are not fucking. They are, _almost, _something else.

The two of them wander into the courtyard, a few birds calling overhead. Dasha settles beside him, letting him take the lead. He makes a joke about one of the pieces and Dasha laughs, the sound clean and easy. He winks at her, a smile like two people in on a secret, before he reaches over and tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. There’s something about the soft summer light, about the clean smell of the museum’s courtyard, that makes her love him. The realization hits her like a freight train. She loves him. Or something close to it. And, without thinking, she rises up on her toes and kisses him. His lips are soft. Until they aren’t. Until he’s pulling away, wiping his mouth. “Not here.” He says, quietly and the look on her face must be so ragged, so absolutely broken, that he reaches for her. She ducks out of his grasp. “Dasha.”

“No don’t. It’s fine.”

She wipes at her cheeks, horrified to find hot tears streaming down them. “It is obviously not.” He looks perturbed. That calm façade breaking like it had the morning after they fucked. “Why don’t we discuss this?”

“I said it’s fine.”

“And I said we’re going to discuss it.

“Fuck you.” She startles herself by saying it, then doubles down. “Seriously _fuck _you. I’ve never been so confused in my entire fucking life!”

Solas pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily. “Gods, what an unruly sub you are.”

She gapes at him, not entirely sure what he means by that, but entirely sure it’s meant to hurt her. “Fuck you!”

He reaches for her again, but she takes two shaky steps back, and he relents, the tendons in his neck pulsing. “That’s enough of _that_.”

“No! No, fuck that. How could you say that to me?!”

He looks her over, eyes cold. “It’s a compliment.”

“Bullshit. Me being a good sub is literally the entirety of our goddamn relationship. And you’re…you’re saying that…” She trails off, unable to articulate the way he has just discarded her in a few words.

He shakes his head, mouth tight. He looks angry, furious really, but Dasha gets the distinct impression it is not with her. “I should not have taken you on.”

“Fuck you.”

“Stop it.” He looks hard at her then shakes his head, looking off into the middle distance. “This is on me. You were new to the scene and you were so…” he shakes his head again, “hesitant. I should have walked away. I should not have started this.”

“I’m trying as hard as I can.” She barely recognizes her own voice.

Tenderness breaks across his face and when he reaches out for her again, she lets him cup her cheek. “I know. You’re doing so good. But this is clearly difficult for you. In ways I should have considered before.”

Dasha is crying harder now, crying for real and she wipes angrily at her cheeks, furious at herself for letting this happen. “Don’t say that. You’re such an asshole. How is any of this supposed to make me feel?”

He looks her hard in the eye. “Vindicated. This was my mistake. And you can be as angry as you want at me.”

“I don’t want to be angry at you. I want to _be _with you.” The air stills.

His face is completely unreadable. “_Dasha_.” It’s pity. It’s pity in his voice. She can’t hear another word of it. She breaks out, fleeing from the courtyard.

It’s only when she’s on the bottom step of the museum that she realizes he has followed her out. He grabs her by the shoulder and she twists away, nearly tumbling from the steps. Solas takes hold of both of her wrists. “Leave me alone!” She pries her wrists from him and takes a step back.

A few people passing on the sidewalk look up at them. His voice is a low hiss. ”Stop yelling you’re making a scene.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Dasha, calm down.”

That ignites a rage inside of her. She balls her hands into fists and starts to shout. “You make me feel like you didn’t give a single shit about me!”

Now it’s Solas’ turn to raise his voice. “Of course I do!” He pauses, blinking like he’s surprised himself with his sudden vehemence. His voice is quieter when he speaks again. “More than I should.”

She recoils, her voice lowering to almost a whisper. “Fuck you for even saying that.” Then raises her voice again, a sudden, angry second wind. “ I’m in way over my fucking head!”

“Yes, you really fucking are!”

She rocks back like she’s been slapped, then bites back “And you knew that! This whole fucking time! That’s probably why you even picked me in the first place! Because you knew I would be easy!”

“Don’t you dare imply that I would ever-“

“And you don’t even care about me! Not like I care about you!” She slaps a hand over her mouth. She’s revealed even more of herself now. Her heart pounds so quick and so hard that she feels lightheaded, like it’s going to pound out of her chest. Solas says nothing. He’s straightened up, hands clasped behind his back. His eyes have gone hard again. “I have to go.” It’s barely above a whisper. He lets her.

This time he doesn’t follow. She looks back to find him standing on the museum’s massive front steps, watching her. She should have expected he wouldn’t chase her, should have expected he would never let himself be that out of control. She loses control for him, breaking into a run. Her phone buzzes once. Then goes quiet.

The cake is easy. She gets the most colorful one. The one with the most frosting. Something about the sugary processed tang of it. The way she can imagine digging her fingers in. The sugary stuff comes up easiest. The pizza is a little harder. She stands for a long time in front of the iced-over glass of the fridge at the back of the bodega. Thin crust or thick? Meat lovers or supreme? Or both? Something that’s just gonna come back up shouldn’t matter this much but her nerves are completely frayed. Every time the bodega’s front door dings, the pain in her head gets steadily worse.

She sits on the counter as the oven preheats and eats the cake with a fork. Starts on the outside until the cake looks like a little shaved dog, then goes in on the middle. She doesn’t taste it, not really. She can feel it stuck to her cheeks, her lips, can feel a sharp pain in her stomach with each bite, but she doesn’t stop. The apartment is so quiet that all she can hear is her own eating. A sloppy sound that disgusts her just as it makes her feel a heavy, muffled calm. Josie is gone for the whole weekend. Dasha can get into all kinds of trouble. The thought sparks an excitement tinged in terror. She imagines Josie coming home late Sunday night, turning the lights on one by one as she heads back toward her bedroom, heels clacking on the hardwood. She imagines herself curled like a little animal beside Josie’s toilet, her skin grey, her lips blackened, pulled back from her teeth. Just like Sera’s had been. She wonders if Josie will scream as loud as she did. Dasha kneads her temples, trying to banish the thought. She keeps eating.

It’s hard to see past the stars in her eyes so she lays her head down on the toilet’s cold porcelain seat. Her lips were so dry that as she vomited, they split and the metallic taste of her own blood sits on her tongue. There’s vomit on the floor, in her hair, under her fingernails. The smell fills the room. A sharp pain shoots through her stomach. She doesn’t move.

A heavy fatigue has settled in her limbs and all Dasha can do is lay where she’s landed, her hands limp on the cold, tile floor. She is so cold and so tired and so fucking alone and it’s easy to cry. So she does. Hard and so pitifully that the sound of it makes her cry even harder. She just wants to be held, to have someone brush her hair back, run a cool cloth along her burning skin.

Her phone buzzes loudly on the tile and she is shocked to see that it is Solas who is calling her. Vertigo rushes over her and then a longing so intense that all she can do is cry harder. She lets it ring. Lets it ring when he calls a second time. He calls once more and then not again. The bathroom falls into silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Your comments and kudos (and just your views) really do give me life <3


	17. Chapter 17

There’s a word her mother used to use for feelings like this. Something Dasha’s never heard outside the sandy desolation of central New Mexico. She can’t really remember it. Just fragments. Just what it evoked. Like the glistening tips of the tails of scorpions, like burrs that stick hard to truck wheels, to the bottoms of jeans. The spines of a cholla when they disappear into skin, painful and yet impossible to find. It’s worked its way inside her. _He _has. No matter how many times she tries to tell herself he hasn’t. It’s futile.

Dasha doesn’t want to think about his face or his fingers or the way his eyes had softened, just a little, when she told him that she cared for him. Like really. Like for real. _Stop it. _She twists her hair up into a bun with an almost painful ferocity, relishing just a little the way it makes her scalp sting.

She wasn’t really paying attention when Dorian told them exactly why they were closing the restaurant that evening, why he’d asked them to come nearly six hours before dinner service usually starts. Private party this, important guest that. She’s fine. It’s whatever. She’s _fine_. Dasha starts in on the skin around her nails, watches as Dorian scurries past, three bottles of wine tucked under his arm.

It’s Monday and it feels, despite that burr stuck inside of her, like a relief. Because the day before had been one of the longest in her entire life. The weekend like a crater she’s just crawling out of.

She’d spent the rest of her Saturday after the debacle at MOMA binging and purging, racking up an insane postmates bill and nearly clogging Josie’s toilet. She’d woken the next morning in so much pain she was sure, for a brief, terrifying moment, that she was dead. Or about to be. Her stomach felt like an overripe peach, heavy and full and like it might burst with even the slightest pressure. So she’d done her best approximation of pulling herself together. Scrubbed the bathroom until her fingers ached, brushed her teeth so hard her gums bled, flossed with a ferocity that left her mouth nearly numb. She’d choked down a salad and five hardboiled eggs, curling up on Josie’s dining room chair until the tightness in her belly finally passed then sat in a bath so hot it scalded her skin.

That kamikaze self-care again. But it had worked. Mostly. She’d slept like a baby that night and woke up this morning feeling pretty much like a human being again. That is until two hours ago. Because she’d made the mistake of checking her phone on the train and the universe laid two real whoppers in her lap.

Dasha swallows hard and takes a step back from the bar where she’d been organizing silverware. The restaurant is a quiet orchestra, tension bouncing off the walls. She swishes some seltzer water in her mouth and opens her phone again. The two notifications are just sitting there. Twin harbingers. She feels a little nauseous looking at them, worried suddenly that she might get sick. Funny that. How bad she doesn’t want it when it’s out of her control. Dasha takes another sip of seltzer water and taps her password in. Starts to read the email for the hundredth time that day.

**From: Annette Roberts <aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu>  
** **To: Darya Lavellan <[dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu)>  
** **Subject: New York MOMA weekend  
** **Hello Dasha,  
** **I don’t imagine asking you to respond to this email will have much effect, but I would still **_very much _appreciate it if you would _at the very least_ give me some indication that you are alright. I’ve spoken with several of your colleagues and was surprised and concerned to learn that _none _of them have heard from you.  
**You have every right to leave the graduate program, but given the circumstances of your departure, I think it would be wise if we sat down and had a conversation. I will be in New York for The Film Benefit at MOMA in two weeks. I will make time to have a coffee with you. Please let me know if this timeframe works. I can be flexible.  
** ** \- A**

Dasha deletes the email after a moment of consideration, but something feels different. There’s a quiet yearning bubbling up inside of her. To respond, to meet. To figure things out. She misses her work, misses the program, even if only vaguely. Just the idea of it. Dasha misses…everything. Misses walking down Westwood Plaza, Sera chattering away at her side, backpack heavy with books, the sun shining clean and bright over them, the palms swaying in the breeze. But she doesn’t have time or space for big, complicated emotions like that, not when Solas’ terse, single-sentence text is still looming on her screen.

_I think we should renegotiate our contract. _

It is, she assumes, a breakup text. And while she should honestly be a _lot _more concerned about the email from Annette, her brain is fixated on the text. She reads it over again and a fresh wave of anger and longing and a powerful, helpless loneliness washes over her. She brushes her hair back from her face. _Son of a bitch._ One of the waiters swoops in to take the cutlery she’s finished organizing from off the bar. _Asshole. _Dorian snipes at Cole, who’s emerged from the kitchen looking vaguely damp and very stoned. _Piece of shit. _Bouncing nervously on her toes, Dasha opens the message again, fingers hovering over the keyboard. She wants to cry. She wants to call him and cry, wants to feel his hands on her. Even if they’re painful, even if they’re cruel. _Ridiculous. _She stuffs her phone into her back pocket and takes another sip of seltzer. 

Bull’s entrance, as usual, disrupts the entire flow of the restaurant. Even if he wasn’t as big as a semi-truck, just the sheer force of his personality would send ripples through the quiet austerity of it. She watches Dorian make a face as he comes through the door and duck out of view. He hasn’t mentioned anything more about Bull and their relationship after the night with Cole and, now that she thinks about it, Dasha has never once seen them interact anything but professionally in the restaurant. Almost too professionally. Maybe she and Dorian should talk. Commiserate. “Hey.” Dasha jumps, caught off guard. Bull is looming over her at the bar, dressed in his usual short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and shorts, eyes skimming the entire restaurant. “You got clothes that aren’t your work clothes? It’s sweltering out.”

Dasha straightens up. “Am I…leaving?”

He glances over at her. “You wanna be?”

“Um are you firing-“

“Need another pair of eyes and arms at the farmer’s market.” He cocks a singular eyebrow. “Or would you rather stay here with the cutlery?”

Dasha changes into shorts in the bathroom, tucking her stiff shirt into the hem, undoing a few buttons with hurried fingers. Bull seems like he’s in a rush and she, honestly, doesn’t want to spend too much time alone with her body, alone here in the bathroom. It’s like a reflex. She can taste bile in her throat. But on the way to the door, she catches her reflection and pauses. It’s almost startling to see herself. Like she’s forgotten what she looks like. Dasha heads back toward the sink, shoes clacking on the tile floor and leans toward the mirror, examining herself.

Her lips look swollen, eyes sunken but in a way she finds almost appealing, like they’re rimmed in smoke. She looks the kind of willowy, waify broken that sailed a thousand auteur films. A muse. She’s a blinding, burning supernova. Growing brighter as she fades. She takes Solas’ rejection and she feeds on it, she takes her grief and she feeds on it. She takes the wreckage of her life between her teeth. Dasha looks like destruction and she tastes the sick pleasure of it on her tongue.

The sky above them is that strange evening limbo that only exists at the height of summer. Robin’s egg blue with a green wash, golden at the edges, darkness simmering just at the horizon. They’d nearly bought the market out, bags of produce sitting packed in Bull’s trunk and backseat. It smells like green onion and the fresh, earthy skin of heirloom tomatoes. Dasha’s mouth waters. She pops a mint. Chews it viciously.

They have about an hour before they need to be back at the restaurant for the event, but Bull’s parked his jeep in an alleyway, killed the engine. They’ve got an alright view of the Brooklyn bridge and enough privacy that no one’s gonna glance through the windows and see him rolling a joint. He hands it to her once he finishes and rolls down the driver’s side window, letting the hot summer air roll over them. The alley smells like wet paper and cigarettes. Dasha rolls the joint around between her fingers. “Probably shouldn’t smoke weed before dinner service.”

“Why? Weed fuck with your coordination?”

“No, I mean…like just on principle. Probably not the best to like…” she glances over at him, “show up fucked up to work.” He chortles. Says nothing. She lights it. Takes a hit. It’s good. A little spicy. Goes right to her head. She takes another then passes it back. The joint crackles as he smokes it, a little ash catching the air and floating past her. They’d talked about nothing and everything as they wound through the market and a quiet companionship has blossomed between them. Which makes it easier, as Dasha glances over at the tattoo on Bull’s thigh, buffered some by the weed, to ask. “So what’s that mean?”

Bull glances down, then scoffs. “Just a tattoo.”

“Not it’s not.” She turns in the seat to face him, legs crossed. She’s flushed from her chest to her cheeks, can feel the heat radiating off her skin. Embarrassment and exhaustion and the thick summer air. She’s stoned already, and lightheaded, and enough of a mess that this all feels a little unreal.

He brushes her off. “Nothing you’d be interested in.” 

A spike of anger flashes through her. She feels a little manic, a little too bright. “Maybe I’m already interested. Maybe I’m already…” She trails off. He raises both eyebrows, then laughs quietly, leaning back to let his headrest on the seat. She recognizes, almost immediately, the same coiled energy she sometimes feels wafting off Solas and her body jumps to attention.

“Now let’s be really clear what we are talking about here, alright?” Dasha demurs, that strange out of place shyness rising up in her again. “So what are we talking about, huh?”

“I mean….”

“I know what _I’m_ talking about.” He takes a hit of the joint and passes it back. She lets it burn between her fingers. The smoke billowing between them has a strange shimmer. “I’m talking about BDSM. I’m talking about rough fucking, talking about discipline, about _punishment_.” He eyes her, even the one white eye suddenly piercing.

“Yeah.” She swallows. “Me too.”

He nods, considering, then sits up again. “Well, alright then.”

A realization dawns suddenly on her and she scrambles for the right words. “I’m not like…I’m not like propositioning you or something.”

He laughs so hard he has to lean back to try and contain it. “Oh Andraste’s tits. I knew that.” He wipes at one eye. “You’re not my type anyway.” She bristles and he just laughs harder. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re pretty. Just not my kind of pretty.”

“Wow, alright.”

“I like my women sturdy.”

She flinches, runs her hands along her bare thighs. “Huh.”

“So you a sub then?” She flushes, looking away. His laugh is loud and bright. “Whoo boy I bet you’re trouble.”

Her chest tightens. She can almost hear Solas’ admonishment, his quick dismissal, ringing in her ears. “Don’t”

“Trouble’s the most fun.”

She feels suddenly like a child, her voice gone quiet. She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Yeah, I’m not sure most people feel that way.”

“Uh oh. Trouble with your dom?”

Dasha shrugs. She cannot believe she’s talking about this to her fucking boss. She hasn’t even told most of her friends this shit. But there’s something about the weed, something about the way the air is cooling around them as the sun slips between the buildings. About the tattoo. “Yeah, I guess.” She shrugs. “It’s not like we’re in a relationship.”

Bull snorts. “What the fuck do you mean? Of course you’re in a relationship.”

“I mean we’re not like…” She tries to parrot what Zevran told her, but here, in this new context, it sounds ridiculous. A little naïve.

“So what you just fuck and that’s it? He doesn’t take you out to dinner or spend time with you outside session? Because like I mean a lot of BDSM relationships are like that. And they’re still relationships.”

“No, I mean…we do…go out but like not…”

“So you go out.”

She frowns, eyebrows knitting. “We have.”

“So you don’t just fuck all the time?”

She hesitates, frowning deeper. ‘No…we don’t. But.”

“But what?”

She shakes her head and reaches for the joint, plucking it from between his fingers. Dasha doesn’t want to fucking go there. Her mind is already spinning. She takes a long hit of it then nods again at his thigh. “What’s the tattoo?”

He whistles. “Man I bet you are a fun challenge, the way you take charge.”

She stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He chuckles. “Just bet you keep your dom on his toes is all.” He snorts, looking a little wistfully out the windshield. “That’s the ideal, boss. That’s the essence of it. BDSM at its core. A challenge.” He looks pointedly at her. “It’s not easy to take charge, to take responsibility. Just like it isn’t easy to relinquish it. Too many subs just lay down and take it, but there’s nothing erotic about that. It should _always _be a give and take. Pushing and pulling.” He cocks an eyebrow at her. “I doubt you’re a natural.” She bristles. “And that’s probably the best compliment I could give you in the scene.” She remembers what Solas told her on the steps of MOMA and wonders if he has the same idea about it all, if she’d misread him entirely. Bull rolls out his neck, a loud crack. “The tattoo’s old school. Just a thing a lot of doms did in the early nineties.”

“Oh,” she takes a quick hit then passes the joint back, “what does it mean?”

He chuckles, this time almost self-deprecating. A little sheepish. “It’s the ring of O.”

“Oh shit.”

He looks over at her. “You know it?”

“Like _The Story of O? _Like the…novel?”

“Yep.”

Dasha hasn’t read the book, but she’d seen Damiano’s adaption her second semester of graduate school, been so inspired that she’d spent weeks pouring over reviews of it. But she’s not about to tell him that so she just shrugs. “Heard of it.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

She blinks at him. “What?”

“Listen, I don’t care where you came from or what you’re trying to outrun but do me a favor and quit pretending like you don’t know shit.” She just gapes at him. “I’ve only been working with you a couple months and I can already tell you’re smarter than every single person in that restaurant. Including me. And a hell of a lot more worldly.”

Dasha straightens, mouth twitching a little up. It’s a rough compliment, but a compliment nonetheless. “Wow, okay.” She passes the joint back. “Maybe try to be less of a dick about it huh?”

He smiles. “Noted.” Then looks back down at his thigh. “Your dom have one?”

“No.” She hasn’t seen all of Solas’ naked body, not in the light at least, but she’s almost certain he wouldn’t have something like that. Can’t imagine him having tattoos at all.

“You gonna tell me who they are? I might know ‘em.”

She snorts. “Absolutely not.”

He laughs. “Well alright then, good talk.”

Dasha rolls her eyes, turning back around in her seat. She feels vaguely embarrassed to have brought this up with, of all people, her boss, but she feels settled too. That loneliness a little less sharp around the edges.

Bull ashes the joint on his dashboard beside a little plastic figurine of a hula girl. Her hips shake as he starts the car. He pauses, then turns to look at her. “If you want something Dasha, you gotta ask for it.” He doesn’t give her time to reply before he switches on the radio, filling his jeep with sound. She hesitates, just looking at him, but it’s clear the conversation is over. Dasha reaches up to buckle her seatbelt, her brain suddenly buzzing. And what does she want? Would she even know well enough to ask for it? She shifts to slide her phone out of her pocket. She runs her thumb across Solas’ message, taps it twice. The city is rushing past them as Bull drives. Her heart has started to pound at the base of her throat. She pulls up his faculty profile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The film Dasha refers to is the Story of Joanna. It’s kind of a porno classic actually and if you’re into BDSM and like movies from the seventies it’s worth a watch. 
> 
> If you’re in the scene at all then you know MOMA’s Film Benefit takes place in the fall so pls forgive my artistic license lol. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading <3


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My computer died, so I worked sort of piecemeal on this chapter. Excuse any glaring (more glaring at least) grammatical weirdness.

The long, grassy boulevard that cuts down the center of Columbia’s campus reminds her, a little, of Paris. And Paris is dense with memories. Reminds her of Josie. Of the carefree way she wore her hair when she lived there, curls cascading all down her neck. Of that last night they’d spend together in her apartment in the 16th arrondissement when they’d drank wine and ate good, fresh bread and called Sera over Skype. Of the laughter that had echoed out onto the narrow street below them. And all of that makes her feels lonelier and angrier and quickens her pace.

Hamilton Hall is at the very end of the South Lawn. She can see it in the distance. A tall imposing red brick, a strange mash of colonial revival and neoclassical architecture. And with each step her hands curl tighter into fists. The day is hot, the sun beating down onto the city from a blank, cloudless sky. Dasha’s in shorts. Short shorts that cinch up around her waist. The kind that make her butt look round and perky and her legs doe long. The shirt she’s tucked into it just thin enough that the outline of her nipples press through. It makes her feel gross and powerful all in the same moment. Small and angry and humiliated and, in some quiet part of her, hopeful. Because she wouldn’t have come all the way across the city, right back into the lion’s den of her memories, if some small part of her didn’t think that she might be able to fix this. Whatever it is. Whatever fixing it would mean.

But there’s another part too – that quiet, masochistic part that delights in the idea that Solas really, truly does not care about her – that is perhaps just here to pull herself deeper under than she already is. There is a part of her that imagines herself curled cold around the base of a toilet, stiff and dead, and thinks that would be just fine.

All of them meet in the middle, sending her practically jogging through the building’s front doors.

His office is on the 6th floor. Close to the top of the building and despite its stately exterior, it has the same lightly run down feel of all academic buildings, Ivy or no. The linoleum floor is damp, yellow caution cones laid haphazard around the hallway, the whole place smelling like cleaner and construction. There’s slow, sort of ragged pace of academia in the summer. UCLA was like this too. Only a few professors and graduate students still lingering on campus, custodians and construction workers have the run of the place..

Dasha wonders, a little too late now as she takes the last flight of stairs, if he’ll even be in his office. There’s no reason for him to be as far as she could tell. He could be away at a conference; he could be in a meeting in another building. He could be back at his apartment. The thoughts don’t have much traction, she’s moving at an almost manic pace around the winding corners, searching the doors for his number. As they inch higher, her heart starts to pound.

She has only a single moment of hesitation when she rounds the corner of his office but by then it’s far, far too late. Because he is sitting at his desk, reading glasses on, bent over a thick tome, frowning in concentration. His door is open, and the shock of seeing him actually here, in the flesh, makes her come to an abrupt halt, the soles of her sneakers squeaking against the floor. He looks up and every muscle in his body goes rigid, his mouth just a little slack.

She considers, for a moment, just turning heel and running out of the building, but he stands and with a look that brokers absolutely so argument, gestures stiffly for her to come inside. She does. Her chest so tight now that she can barely breathe, barely swallow. His eyes follow her as she crosses the room. Solas removes his reading glasses, settling them down on his desk. There’s an elegance in his movements that fill her with a strange fear. His shoes clack on the floor as he comes around his desk. 

The silence in the room is so thick, Dasha can taste it. She has the sudden urge to drop to her knees and beg. Beg him to say something, beg him to pull this awful feeling out of her. But he doesn’t even spare a glance over at her as he crosses the distance to the door and the impulse withers inside of her. The door closes with a quiet click and for a long moment he keeps his back to her, hands resting on the heavy wood. Dasha can see through the thin fabric of his sweater that every muscle in his back is tense. She can’t look at him anymore. He’s become too real to her all at once. The way she’d felt as they’d walked through MOMA together just the barest hint of what this feels like. To see him in the light of day. Here in a place that echoes everything she’s known for so long. So, she turns to that, turns to look at the office around her. It’s exactly like she imagined – dense with books, an organized chaos – and it fills her with indescribable longing. To be in this part of his life, to have him see her here. To really see her. But the longing is fleeting because when he turns, just slightly toward her, she can see fury in the tight line of his mouth. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how hugely inappropriate it is that you’ve shown up here.” A muscle jumps in his jaw. “_At my work.” _

“No one here has any idea who I am.” Her fingers curl into nervous fists.

Solas’ words are tight, almost strained. “No, of course not. But that is irrelevant.” His back is still to her, muscles still taut. “It is a matter of principle. A matter of respect.” He turns, slowly, to face her, eyes burning. “It is a matter of _submission. _Which is, in case you’ve forgotten, something you are _supposed _to care about.”

“You’re ashamed of me.” She means it to sound accusatory, but it comes out small and that look of pity flits over his face again, just for a moment. The urge to flee is so intense now she has to reach out to steady herself on his desk, a brief vertigo washing over her.

Solas takes a deep breath, releasing the muscles in his shoulders. When he speaks again, his voice is the even, measured tone she’s grown so accustomed to. “Of course not but we have established boundaries. Those boundaries exist for a reason, Dasha. To protect both of us.” 

Dasha just looks at him. Her anger has all but dissipated. There is something about being here in his office that has snuffed it out. All academic offices smell the same, feel the same and she is torn between the person she used to be and the person she’s fumbling along as now. She finds, startlingly, that she has no idea how to act. “I just need to know.” It comes out like a whine.

Something flickers in his eyes. “Know what?”

Dasha hesitates. The words that she had so carefully crafted on the train ride over seem foolish now, naïve. _I need to know what we are. _She can’t make herself say it and so instead she doubles down. “You know that you’ve never asked me anything about myself. Not once”

Solas blinks, startled. “If you recall,” he says, tone measured and careful. “I have, _more than once_, asked you to tell me about yourself. You’ve been reticent. I was trying to respect your boundaries. In unconventional arrangements such as these-“

“Like you give a shit!” The anger has come roaring back. His icy dismissals and distant gazes, the way he’d recoiled from her after that kiss on the terrace. They all slam into her and suddenly she is shaking with rage. “You only care about me when it benefits you!” Silence falls again over the office and Dasha practically heaves.

His silence has always been the cruelest thing about him, his sharpest tool, and when she looks up at him again, his face is a cold nothing, like he’s shut it all away. “You have become attached to me in ways I could not have anticipated.” Dasha gasps, the sound swelling in the room. He’s gutted her, his words cutting so deep she wants to cry out. She wants to howl. She had loved him in the courtyard. It had been a trick of the light. The room seems too bright now. And too big. And too empty. Her vision drifts. Across his desk, across all his books, the light skittering over them. “I think it would be in both of our best interest to reexamine our contract.” His voice sounds very far away. Her eyes trial across his open window, the light bleaching the world outside into a pale nothing. Like only this room exits. “If we set clearer boundaries, we can likely avoid-“

“I hate you.” Her voice is quiet, but she hears his sharp intake of breath. Her eyes slide back to him and for the first time since that night in the hotel, he looks afraid. His mouth works over words he can’t seem to say. “I hate that you can talk about me like that. Like I’m nothing.”

“_Dasha._” She wipes at her cheeks, her fingers shaking. “Dasha come here.” The tenderness in his voice is worse than the coldness. She shakes her head and brushes past him back out into the hallway. This was stupid, coming here, so so wildly stupid. She stumbles down the hall, the sound of his shoes on the linoleum echoing as he moves. 

He catches up with her on the green, grabs hold of her shoulder and pulls her back toward him. The touch is a shock. Her body balks, confused, before her brain starts working again. She twists away from him. “Don’t touch me,” she hisses.

He releases her, jaw tight, eyes aflame. “We won’t get anywhere if you _insist _on these dramatics. I understand that you are upset but I need you to be _rational_.”

She snarls at him. “Fuck you.”

His cool exterior cracks, just a little and Dasha sees a well of emotion in his eyes. Fear and desire and something that looks a lot like self-loathing. It echoes inside of her. And then he slams himself shut again straightening up, eyes cold. “I am not being unreasonable, Dasha. I had no intention of ending our arrangement. I was merely trying to-“

“Dasha? Dasha is that you?” They both freeze. Dasha goes rigid, terror spiking inside of her She knows that voice. It’s cheerful lilt. Dasha turns back to look at Solas, pleading. Begging. “Dasha Lavellan,” It’s closer now, just behind her. “I was sure it was you. Hi!” The woman claps her on the shoulder, smiling brightly. Dasha goes a little limp, her world tilts.

The woman’s in a pair of loose jeans and a thin, sort of ill-fitting sweater, her close-cropped sandy hair pointing in all directions. _Sloppy, _Annette once whispered to Dasha . They were watching her presentation on Abramovic’s _Rhythm 10_ at CAA, maker, years ago now, _what a sloppy woman. _And she still is. Unkempt and slouchy. And yet, Susan Boskovic commands a presence. The preeminent scholar on modern performance art, the woman who fought hard with the graduate school to add a third fellowship to Dasha’s funding package offer, the woman who has her hand still on Dasha’s shoulder now, here in Columbia’s courtyard as her life falls apart around her. “My god, if I have known you were in town, I would have taken you out! Last I heard you were in Prague.” Dasha doesn’t dare look over at Solas but she can feel the way his whole body has tensed. “What luck we ran into it each other!” She’s tittering like a bird. Dasha can barely keep up. She wants to curl up. Wants to disappear. “They’ve just set up an incredible Yayoi Kusama exhibit at MOMA. Have you had a chance to stop in yet? I know the curator would love to see you.”

Dasha chances a glance over at him. His face is impassive. A purposeful clinical distance that she knows now means he is trying very hard to contain himself. Dasha shakes her head. “No, I haven’t yet.”

Then Susan looks up, blinks at couple of times, and cocks her head. “Solas. Good morning.” He nods politely. “Odd to see you outside our faculty board meetings.”

“Good morning, Susan. I hope you’re well.”

“Very.” She looks between them, an eyebrow raised. “You know Dasha?”

Solas’ tone is light, professional. “I do.”

Susan furrows her brows and turns back to Dasha. “Are you doing ancient art now? Quite the departure for you.”

Dasha clears her throat but her voice still sounds strained. “No, I’m still…working in contemporary.”

She chuckles, a little incredulous, the sound almost threatening. “How do you know each other then?”

Solas straightens up, hands clasped behind his back. Dasha fights the urge to stand at attention. “We’ve been recently acquainted.” He glances over at her. “Outside academia, funnily enough.” His voice is clipped. Dasha swallows hard. Her brain is spinning. He knows now, even if he doesn’t know the specifics, he must have figured out the shape of things. Of course, he has. It isn’t hard to piece together now. And he seems intent to pry. “And the two of you know each other?”

Susan laughs, squeezing Dasha’s shoulder. “Goodness yes. A rising star in her field at UCLA. Though we tried hard to bring her here.” She turns to Dasha. “Annette didn’t tell me you were in New York. And I just spoke with her the other day.” 

“Oh.” Dasha’s voice is almost a whisper. “It must have slipped her mind.” Dasha feels uncomfortably out of her body. Solas raises a single eyebrow and though he is looking at Susan, Dasha knows it’s for her. She has to look away. She feels…guilty. Like she’s lied even though she hasn’t, not really. And he doesn’t really care, she reminds herself, that’s the whole reason she’s even here. Because it doesn’t matter what she does, not really. She exists here to fit into his reality, not the other way around. And her heart aches when she thinks about it. A powerful, palpable pain.

“Yes, it must have. I’m sure she would have told me that you were here.” Susan looks to Dasha, then to Solas, then back. A slow recognition dawns over her face.. She pats Dasha again on the shoulder then retracts her hand. “Well then. I suppose I should leave you to it.”

“It was nice to see you.”

“Same, same. How long are you in New York?”

Dasha’s tongue is a heavy, useless weight in her mouth. “I’m not sure.”

Susan pats her on the shoulder. “Well, give me a call hmm?”

“Sure, yeah.”

She glances over at Solas as she passes. “Nice to see you, Solas.”

He nods at her. “And you.”

They stand in silence for too long, both watching as Susan crosses the quad away from them, Solas with his hands still clasped behind his back, Dasha holding herself tightly. Susan looks back once, the curiosity plain on her face even from far away. Dasha hears Solas take a deep breath. She doesn’t look at him, _can’t _look at him, but she can feel the power of his gaze. “Would you like to explain yourself?”

Dasha shivers. She still can’t look at him. “I don't know what you mean.”

He chuckles, a frustrated, almost mean sound. “Oh yes, of course not. How foolish of me to assume that you would be at all forthcoming after the performance you just put on.” His admonishment hurts, physically. Worse than anything he’s done to her body. Funny now that she has his full attention it feels like this. Like hell. 

“I need to go.”

He glances over sidelong at her. “You’ve just arrived.” She can’t tell if he’s goading her. She takes a step back then thinks better of it. She flexes her fingers in and out of fists. She feels completely adrift and yet still trapped, her indecision has rooted her in place. And she realizes, as she glances up to study his face, that she’s waiting for him to tell her what to do. And he seems to realize it too.

Pain passes over his eyes. Clear as day. So sharp she can almost feel it. His lips twitch downward. “You don’t need my permission to leave, Dasha. .” She still doesn’t move, trembling like a little rabbit. He looks again at her. “What do you want, Dasha? To stay or to go?”

Her head snaps up to look at him and suddenly the sun streaming down onto them is warm like it only is in California. Sera wavers on the bottom step of the porch, music pouring loud from open windows and doors. One strap on her dress slipping down her shoulder. _Well, you staying or going? _The other party had just been down the street. She’d be right back. That’s what she told her. The last thing, it turns out, she would tell her. Dasha takes two shaky steps backward. Solas comes back into view. He’s reaching out, trying to touch her, and her heart jumps up into her throat. She flees. Turns and runs. “Dasha.” She doesn’t look behind her. “Dasha!”

The crying gets worse on the train home. Like the further she travels from him the more real all of this becomes. Sera and her program and Solas. So heavy on her that all she can do is cry. And by the time she makes it up the stairs to Josie’s apartment, makes it into the foyer, she is sobbing. Loud and desperate and without even shutting the door behind her, she collapses onto her knees.

Josie is in the middle of making dinner. Dasha can tell by the thick smell of garlic wafting through the apartment. But as soon as Dasha’s knees hit the ground, Josie is there with her, hands tight on her arms. All of their reflexes have been sharpened by grief. Josie’s maybe most of all and as she holds Dasha, Dasha feels the way her limbs are trembling. So she says, between gasping sobs, “I’m okay. I swear I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not,” Josie says, her grip tightening. “Maker, no you’re not.” And it’s the most honest thing Dasha’s heard in so long. And it’s a relief.

The table is quiet. Dasha’s cheeks are dry from her tears, her eyes puffy and swollen. Josie is stony across from her. A glass of red wine sitting untouched beside her slender hand. Josie shifts in her seat. Dasha’s eyes slide over to watch her. Her phone is buzzing nonstop on the table. Josie glances over at it, her mouth tight. “Is that him?” Dasha only shrugs. She hasn’t looked. It’s unlike him to call this much, to try and get so desperately in contact with her, but Dasha isn’t sure who else it would be. Josie’s mouth twists, she takes a long pull of wine, and Dasha braces herself. The glass comes down hard. “I cannot believe you would fucking lie to me about this! Months!” Dasha flinches. “_Months! _Maker’s breath, what were you thinking?!” Dasha stiffens. She feels raw, broken clean open. And numb. Most of all. “With this guy at a fucking sex club doing maker knows what to you!’

“I don’t need you to treat me like a child.”

“Apparently you do. Apparently you need someone to tell you what to do because you are incapable of making any reasonable decision at all.”

Dasha crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh, fuck off.”

“After everything that’s happened!”

“After everything’s that’s happened?!” Dasha’s yelling now, all that rage she hadn’t been able to unpack in his office boiling over onto Josie’s kitchen table. “At least I’m not hiding like you are! Working all day, sitting alone in this _fucking _apartment stewing in her death!” She spits the last word.

Josie doesn’t miss a beat. “No, you’re not hiding. You’re running. And how’s that working out for you? Leaving your fucking program! Have you lost your makerdamned mind?! We are _all _so worried about you!”

“_We?!_”

Josie stiffens, clearly ruffled. “Me. I’m worried. I’m worried fucking sick because Sera is dead. Dead at twenty-four and now you seem to be determined to take your life apart piece by piece! The life you have worked so hard for!”

“Oh, please. You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“And I _know _you’re losing weight. Too much weight!”

Dasha glowers at her. “Don’t. Fucking _don’t._”

Josie shakes her head, mouth tight, and reaches for her glass of wine. Dasha pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them, curled up in the chair. She sniffles. _Make up. _Dasha sits bolt upright. She can smell Sera. Cigarettes and cheap perfume filched from Sephora, the sharp tang of acrylic paint. _Make up or I’m not speaking to either of you ever again. _Her brightly painted, chipped nails around Dasha’s jaw. And Josie’s. Holding them to meet each other’s gaze like two feuding cats. Sophomore year of college. Dasha can’t even remember what that fight had been about. _Now make up. _Dasha looks over at Josie. Her eyes are puffy, the dark circles under them deep like bruises. She looks so worn out. And deeply, endlessly sad.

Dasha reaches across the table and takes Josie’s hand. She looks up wide-eyed but squeezes back. “I’m sorry.” The air in the room is heavy. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry this is how you’re finding out.”

Josie wipes a tear from her cheek. “I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me.” 

Dasha hesitates. She isn’t sure what she wants to say, didn’t think she’d get this far. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I _don’t _understand.” Josie leans across the table. “So explain it to me.”

Dasha balks. “I just…I needed this. Maybe I still do.”

Josie nods, looking away. "That is such a _you _answer. Obscuring. Ominous." Josie wipes a tear from her cheek. "I’ve always admired you, you know”

Dasha blinks at her “What?”

Josie’s still looking off out the window. “Admired your bravery. Your drive.” She looks over at Dasha, a quiet smile on her lips. “You’ve always jumped headfirst into all the things that scared me.” Josie takes a deep breath. “And you’ve always landed on your feet.”

“Not always.”

Josie lets out a weak laugh. “Well, you’re still here aren’t you.” They both wince. She takes a deep breath and a sip of wine. “I don’t like whatever this is but…I’ll always be here for you, alright? Always.” She squeezes her hand, Dasha squeezes back, hard.

Josie releases her hand and leans back in the chair. She exhales, running her fingers along the lip of her wineglass. “Maker this is like some tawdry romance novel with you the lovesick fool." Josie looks up at her, perhaps realizing what she's just said. "Are you? In love with him?”

“I don’t know.”

Josie straightens, eyes wide. “So, you might be?”

Dasha’s heart aches, because despite everything, “I might.” Her phone dings. They both look at it.

“Is it from him?”

“Yeah.” Dasha opens her phone. She scrolls through his messages, settles on the most recent. It’s an address. In Chelsea. Her phone buzzes again.

_This is my home address. I expect to see you there tomorrow at 10 am. If I don’t hear from you, I will consider our contract voided._

“What are you going to do?”

Dasha’s fingers hover over the screen. “I have no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3. You guys are so awesome.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick reminder that this *does* have a heavy angst tag (but also a happy ending tag don't kill me lol)

She is, at her very core, a glutton for punishment. Which is why she’s here, sweltering on a sidewalk in Chelsea, waiting to be buzzed into the towering, old school building where Solas lives. Trying not to cry or throw up or any of the dozen other knee jerk things her body is screaming at her to do. The door buzzes, that tiny click that lets her know the door is open. She hesitates. Her heart is pounding, her fingers feel just a touch numb. But she’s here, isn’t she? She might as well be here. The glass is cool to the touch when she pushes the door open.

His apartment is on the tenth floor and the elevator feels like it’s crawling. She multiplies in its reflective walls, her sundress a blot of sunny color. The dress makes her feel young, sort of fragile. Its thin, gossamer fabric hugs the lines of her body and it makes her want to be held, to curl up somewhere small. It’s a dangerous way to feel on a day like this.

The elevator stops on four, a woman in a sarong and sunglasses gets on, pressing the button for roof access. There must be a garden up there, maybe even a pool. The picture of Solas in her head fills out even more. Her longing multiplies. The woman glances over at Dasha, gives her a long once over before slipping her phone out of her pocket and scrolling. Dasha crosses her arms over her chest and looks away, back at her watery reflection in the elevator’s wall. There’s a small, wounded part of her that is flush with anger that Solas didn’t meet her at the door, that he’s making her take this elevator alone, wait dutifully outside his door for him to let her in. The power play is clear. But it’s also, quietly, one she’s thankful for. Because it’s giving her a chance to sort out her thoughts. Try to, at least. She’d slept fitfully the night before, dreaming close to the surface. Only of him. Sometimes she’d wake, gasping, and reach out, so sure he’d been there with her only to find the dark emptiness of her still bare room.

The fact that she’s purged her breakfast isn’t helping her feel much more grounded though it had settled her nerves some. Her throat is raw, a quiet headache pounding behind her right eye. When the elevator opens on the tenth floor, Dasha looks instinctively over the older woman beside her. She’s still on her phone, doesn’t even glance up. Dasha swallows hard. She steps into the hallway. The sun streaming in through the windows hurts her eyes.

Solas answers the door immediately and Dasha flinches. Because seeing him hurts. He’d been so present in her mind, but seeing him in the flesh, close enough to smell the soft scent of soap on his skin, the slightly dry smell of books on his clothes, it’s almost too much. He takes a step back. She doesn’t look him in the eyes.

He’s in a simple, black turtleneck, its sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and a pair of well-fitted jeans. He’s barefoot too and there’s something about it that makes Dasha nearly start to cry. An intimacy she is craving so intensely it’s dizzying. He clears his throat and she finally looks up at him. Solas nods his head in greeting. A polite, professional, distant sort of gesture. It doesn’t sting like maybe it should, because Dasha can tell he’s taking great pains to school his face, a tendon in his neck tight, jumping in time with his heartbeat. He steps aside to let her in. Dasha takes a deep breath and tries not to feel like she’s careening off a cliff.

His apartment is not unlike his office. Dark wood, big windows. Neat but clearly the home of someone who spends most of his time reading, most of his time inside his head. Dasha spots a couple books lying beside the kettle on the stove, one of them open, a pen sitting beside it. She fights the urge to go over and look at the cover. Desperate, still, to get some piece of him. Whatever he’ll let her take. Solas closes the door softly behind her and the light bends, softening some now that the harsher hall lights are no longer filtering in.

Solas has alright taste in art. A big Mark Rothko hangs at the far end of the dining room. One of his later pieces. All yellow with a strip of blurry peach at the top. A reproduction most likely unless she’s greatly underestimated his buying power. She spots a tiny Jack Boyd on his kitchen counter too. It’s one of his smaller sculptures, a headless woman cast in matte silver, her arms outstretched like she’s dancing. His taste in art doesn’t surprise her. Classical. Daring but not too abstract. A pain echoes inside of her because, despite everything, she really does know him. Parts of him, at least. Dasha shakes her head, like she can dislodge that thought. She resumes her looking, trying to finesse his apartment, looking for clues. The art pieces go well with his simple décor. She can see he has good taste, refined, wonders if that usually extends to the subs he takes on. Wonders if he is feeling disoriented by his choice in her. Unruly. Messy. Had that surprised him really? She wants, more than anything, to ask him what he’d seen that first night in the club. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth.

Solas gestures toward his dining table, a round wooden piece across from the kitchen. She sits, tucking her hands between her thighs. “I would like to work through this.” She watches him pad across the floor toward the stove. “I imagine you do too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.” Dasha says nothing, eyes sweeping again over the kitchen table. She spots the same thick folder of documents he’d brought to their first meeting in the café and then, further, an orchid on the windowsill, blooming brightly. If this were a scene in a film, Dasha would say the it was well done. That the mise-en-scene matches his character, elaborates on it. Meticulous, careful. A man who is well-read, organized, attentive enough to keep a fussy plant alive, delicate enough to want to. Dasha glances back at the folder. Foreshadowing. But she doesn’t know yet for what and feels numb, shifting in her seat.

Solas has his back to her, facing the far wall of his kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I’m alright. Thank you.”

He glances back at her, then pours himself one. He comes back to the table and sets a glass of water in front of her. “You, unlike any other person I have ever dealt with, have the uncanny ability to throw me completely off my game.” She recognizes it as a compliment. It doesn’t feel like one. “I have been hugely irresponsible.”

Her anger spikes. The pity in his voice riling her up. “I wish you would stop saying that.”

He fixes her with a stony look. “It’s true.”

Dasha ruffles. “Why can’t you just fucking pick one?” He takes a step back, eyes searching, brow furrowed. “Like you either want me to come to your fucking apartment, you either want to hold me all night or you don’t.” Her voice is steadily rising. “But you have to fucking pick one because I cannot handle this sick fucking foreplay. I cannot handle you telling me one thing and doing the opposite.” Her voice breaks, a few tears slipping down her face.

His face has softened. “Dasha.” She shakes her head. “_Dasha. _What foreplay are you talking about?” She scoffs, wiping angrily at her cheeks. “You keep referring to it but I’m not sure I understa-”

“Stop it.”

He stands straight, hands clasped behind his back. The stance is so familiar, Dasha’s heart aches. “You’ll refrain from interrupting me.” She swallows hard. “Just as I will refrain from interrupting you.” He takes a deep breath, looking off toward the window, then back at her. “I would like this to be civil.” His jaw tightens. “If that is at all possible. I won’t divest you of your emotional responses, but I would like us to approach this rationally.” He cocks his head, eyes still soft. “Is that alright?” Dasha nods. Solas nods too, his fingers dancing over the back of the chair closest to him. He seems, for a moment, unsure of what he wants to say next. “If get us something to eat will you eat it?”

“No.” Then she realizes what she’s said and sits up rigid. “I’m too keyed up. I don’t have an appetite.”

Something passes over his eyes, but he just nods. He doesn’t seem to able to figure out if he wants to stand or sit, hands on his hips, breathing just a little labored. They sit in limbo, neither speaking, neither moving, until Solas sighs, clearing his throat, and remains standing at the end of the table. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an academic?”

Dasha digs her nails into the wood of his table. She should have expected he would ask this but some naïve part of her had hoped he would only want to discuss their arrangement. “You never asked.”

Solas scoffs. “I distinctly recall asking you what you did. I _distinctly_ recall telling you that you were more than welcome to talk about yourself.” He sighs, shoulders slumping as he leans heavily on the table. “It is something we have in common. Our work. Something we could have discussed.”

“You don’t give a shit about any of that though.”

He straightens almost violently. “If you’re going to make presumptions about me, at least ground them in some reality.” He falls quiet, pressing two fingers on the bridge of his nose. “I cannot imagine what I’ve done that would make you think I am not concerned about your best interests.”

“That’s different than caring about me.”

He sighs. “You’re right it is.” Her heart stutters. She braces herself. “And I have found myself doing both. Perhaps since the beginning.” Her lips fall open, breath caught between them. She has no idea what to say to that. No idea how to even try and understand what he’s just said to her. Solas shakes his head, letting the confession bloom in the room then turning abruptly away from it. “I wouldn’t have pried if you told me. I can respect boundaries.” Then he pauses, cocking his head like he’s thinking. He swallows hard. “I am normally very good at respecting boundaries.” Dasha’s hand drifts to her throat, finger soothing along her collarbone. The air between them is dense. She watches as Solas tries to shake it off, straightening up. “Are you here then on a fellowship?”

It takes her a moment to follow him, but soon she stiffens, frowning. “No.”

He cocks his head. “But you’re a candidate at UCLA, correct?”

“I left my program.”

He raises both eyebrows. “Why?”

Dasha stiffens again. “That’s none of your business.”

Solas scoffs, running a hand over his scalp. “Fine., then it’s not. I’m not going to drag these things out of you.”

“Yeah, why would you?”

He scoffs again, this time louder. “Who put this notion in your head? That I don’t care about you or about your life?”

“You did!”

He pauses, looking over at the windows then back at her. “I’m sorry

The earnestness of his apology surprises her. She recoils. “Stop it.”

He looks genuinely taken aback. “Stop what?”

“Confusing me.” Then in a small voice. “_Please_.”

She watches his Adam’s apple bob, his lips twitch “I think it would be wise for us to renegotiate aspects of our contract. Or perhaps put it on hold completely.” The air between them is dense. “I’m not certain I can be what you need. Not when things have” he looks offside, “so clearly become…complicated.”

Dasha stands. She feels wild, crazed almost, and hisses at him through clenched teeth. “Stop pretending this is about me!”

He matches her tempo, his voice like a snarl. “It _is _about you.”

Dasha wavers. They are so close she can see his heart thumping beneath his jaw. Her thoughts are spinning inside her head, the room suddenly too small, too confined, and all she can think about is how badly she wants him. Just some piece of him. And before she can even consider what it will mean, she yanks him to her by his shirt, pulling him down onto her lips.

To her surprise, he kisses back. Hungrily. Hands roaming up her sides, pulling the thin fabric of her dress up over her hips. His mouth is so warm, the taste of him so familiar. He lifts her up onto the table, kissing wet and sloppy down her neck. Dasha wraps her legs around him, holds tight to his neck. She moans, fingers flexing against his skin. One of his hands slips down her flank, hunting between her legs. Dasha gasps when he finds her center, two fingers ghosting over her clit. And she isn’t sure if it’s the sound or the feeling of her on his fingers, but Solas pulls away like he’s been burned, leaving her cold and unbalanced on the table.

He looks at his fingers as though they’re not part of him, as though they’ve mutinied. “No,” his voice is a hushed whisper, like he’s talking mostly to himself, “no this is irresponsible of me.” Dasha breaks, chest heaving. The tears come easy, his rejection ripping clean through her. “Dasha. _Dasha._” He reaches up to hold her face. She lets him, limp in his grasp. “Please, please. I need you to understand that this has _nothing _to do with you. I should not have allowed that. Not when we are still discussing the bounds of our relationship”

She twists away from him, ripping his hands from her face. “Maker’s fucking balls can you keep your overwhelming regret to yourself.”

He releases her, takes a step back. “You’re right” She glances up at him. His lips twitch into a bitter smile. “You’re right. If I’m going to continue to trample over the stipulations in our contract, then I should at least own up to it.” He looks at her. “As you have.”

“I can’t tell if you’re insulting me.”

He shakes his head. “No. Simply marveling at the fact that you have, from the very beginning, outmaneuvered me.” She wants to scream. Wants to tell him that she hasn’t been doing anything of the sort. That she’s been fumbling blindly along after him, following his lead. He takes a deep breath, glancing away, then back again at her. “You look exhausted.”

She scoffs, incredulous. “Fuck off.”

“Watch your tone.”

“What for?”

His laugh is weak, as bitter as his smile had been. “Well met. What for indeed. Why should I expect you to act according to our guidelines when I’ve all but torn it up?” His hand hovers over her shoulder before he finally lets it rest on her. “You’re warm. Are you under the weather?”

Dasha’s fingers drift to her forehead. She always burns up after she’s purged. Like her body is so scattered it doesn’t remember how to regulate itself. “I don’t know.” She’s starting to feel unsteady, light-headed. A sharp pain in her chest fizzles out in the hollow of her throat.

He runs his thumb along her exposed skin. “If you’ll allow me. I would like to at least fulfill some of the promises I made to you in our contract.”

She looks weakly over at him. “I thought we were going to renegotiate it.”

He purses his mouth, then sighs. “We are. We _have to. _But perhaps there are obligations to you I should still fulfill. As a lover, if nothing else.” 

The steam feels good in her lungs even if sitting here in this bathtub makes her feel young, makes her feel uncomfortably small. They stood silently as he drew her a bath, said nothing to each other as he pulled her dress gently over her head, pulled his own shirt off and set it neatly on the toilet seat. She doesn’t ask him now, as she sits in the tub, why he’s doing this, bathing her here, working his nimble fingers over the sore muscles in her shoulders. The touch is tranquilizing, heartbreaking. It numbs her out so much she can’t even find the words to ask him. She figures too that he might not know himself.

“You’re wrong you know.” His voice is quiet, almost wavering. Dasha says nothing. His hands dip back into the warm water, soothing it up her back “I do care for you. Deeply. More than I should.”

That wakes her back up. She sits rigid. “Why can’t you just say you care about me, that you like me, without that caveat?”

He sighs, working a particularly stubborn knot on her shoulder blade with his thumb. “Because I didn't expect for this to happen. I wasn't...prepared for it.”

“Do people involved in…this never date?”

He sighs. “Of course, they do.” _So why can’t you date me_, she doesn’t say even as it rattles around her mouth. What a childish, naïve little question. “But our contract is something different and if we would...we would need to make changes to it.” 

She shifts away from him, the water sloshing around her. “I can’t listen to this. I can’t.”

He sits back. “Dasha. I didn’t mean-”

She feels like an old version of herself in this moment, bolder, brasher. Angrier. She turns to look over her shoulder at him. “I don’t really care what you meant. I hate myself enough as it is. I don’t need any help.”

He looks so gutted she almost reaches out. But she stops herself, lets her hands fall limply back under the water. “Dasha, the very idea that I could feel anything but tenderness toward you is ridiculous. It’s…” he seems to be almost short-circuiting. “If I have contributed in any way to…feelings of…” He straightens up, his voice commanding again. “You should not hate yourself. And I don’t hate you. In fact, quite the opposite. And our new contract should reflect that. Or at least leave room for it. ”

“What the fuck does that mean.” Her head is pounding and she’s crying again, humiliated to be this bare in front of him. “Quit talking in circles. Say what the fuck you mean.” She sees him hesitate and it’s too much. The pity, the fear. She slumps down, holding her knees tightly to her chest. “I don’t think I can do this. I don't think I can be here with you.”

She feels his hand slow on her bare back. “If that’s what you want…” His voice is distant, but he doesn’t remove his hand, presses it in fact closer, palm to her spine. “If that’s what you want then…I won’t…” 

"I think I should maybe go."

She hears him stand. “If that's...perhaps that would be best.” His voice is tight again, distant. And she feels painfully, agonizingly responsible for it. Guilt curls inside of her again, this time heavier and then terror. She looks back at him, eyes pleading. But his face is stony, shut completely to her. She can’t let herself think, can’t let herself feel anything. “Please let me know when you’re home safely.” She wants to scream, wants to scream at the top of her lungs. But instead, she lets him help her to her feet, takes the towel he offers. “I’ll call a cab,” he says, heading out of the bathroom. The door shuts with a quiet thud. Her skin is chilled, the quiet swelling in the room the loneliest feeling she can remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	20. ~update~ not a chapter!!!!

Hi guys. As you've probably noticed, it's been a minute since I've updated this. Don't worry, it's definitely going to be finished. It is in no way being abandoned. I'm just going through some things in my personal life that have made this story hit a little close to home. Again, it’s absolutely going to be finished. I’m just taking a step back for a little while. Probably no more than a month, maybe even much shorter than that. In the meantime: I am (sort of) active on my tumblr <https://ebabel-na.tumblr.com/> so if you want to reach to me there you are more than welcome to. 

I have so appreciated the response this fic has gotten. Like wow, I am blown away by your support. I can't wait to get back into this and I appreciate your patience <3


	21. Chapter 21

If she wasn’t a little stoned, she’d probably tell him to go fuck himself, to fuck right off. She probably _should. _But it’s her day off and she’s been sitting in the bathtub all morning letting it soften every part of her. She’d smoked the last of the weed she brought over from LA, opened the bathroom window to let the warm breeze waft in, the steam waft out. She’d let the tap run and run, kept the water scalding hot. Letting it hurt and then drift to numbness. For hours. All morning. And by the time she got out, the sun high in the sky, streaming through Josie’s windows, she felt loose and sloppy and mostly out of her body. Which was, of course, the goal. To wash away all of last night. His touch, his breath. Every memory of him. And it worked, mostly. And so when Dasha heads out to scrounge up something small to eat from the bodega and instead finds Zevran sitting slumped on the stoop, she’s too pleasantly buzzed, the sun warm on her skin, and the impulse to scream at him is brief and fleeting.

He stands, sniffing, runs his fingers through his tangled hair. “I need to apologize.”

Dasha watches his adam’s apple bob as he gulps. His clothes look clean and he seems steady, mostly sober, but as she looks at him, really looks at him, she sees that he has bruises all along his neck, dark rings of bruising around his wrists. She frowns. “What happened to you?”

His whole body tenses, a ripple inward. “Take a wild guess.”

Dasha squints at him. “I can’t even begin.”

Zevran scoffs. “You’d think you were fucking vanilla the way you’re talking. Let’s just say I’ve been a naughty fucking boy.” Dasha’s nose crinkles. She tries to imagine how anything she’d done with Solas would leave marks like that on her body. Nothing comes to mind. Zevran makes an irritated little noise in this throat. “Are you going to let me apologize or what?” Dasha looks at him, swallows hard, then she moves aside so he can head up the steps.

“If Josie comes back, you’re leaving, okay?” Dasha shuts the door, takes a deep breath before she pushes herself off it and turns to face him.

Zevran is standing in the middle of the room, like he’s afraid to touch anything. He still manages a sneer. “Oh, so the princess doesn’t want me in her house now, huh?”

“No, not that.” Dasha nods for him to sit on the couch. “But if Josie sees those bruises, she’s liable to call the cops.”

He scoffs but plops obediently down on the spot on the couch she’d pointed to. Dasha heads to the windows in front of the couch, lifts the blinds. She’d kept the place dark all day, but now she wants to let the light in, needs to. “Can you fucking imagine what Josie would say if she heard about the shit you’ve been up to?”

“She knows.” Dasha glances over her shoulder. “I told her.”

Zev’s jaw goes a little slack. He narrows his eyes. “Did you fucking seriously?”

“Yup.” She pads into the kitchen, calls back to him. “You want something to drink?”

“Ho lee shit.”

The cool recycled air of the refrigerator drifts over her bare legs when she opens it. “You want something to drink?”

She hears him shift on the couch. “What do you have for beer?”

“We have water.”

He snorts. “Shoulda guessed.” Dasha pours him a glass then pauses before pouring her own. Her stomach has started to ache, a pressure that matches the one in her temples. Water makes it worse. Sloshing around in her empty stomach, acid gurgling at the base of her throat. She pours herself one anyway, hoping a few sips will stem the tide of her headache. Zevran takes it when she returns to the couch and downs it in single, long pull, watching her carefully. “How was your night?”

Dasha frowns. Zevran always starts this way, ever since college, but there’s something in the edge of his voice that makes her think, on some level, he knows. Something, at least. She takes her fingers through her hair, pacing quietly. “Shitty.” Zevran raises an eyebrow. Dasha turns away from him, glances back at the empty kitchen. She’d come home the night before feeling grimy and cold despite the summer heat. She’d texted Solas to tell him that she was home safe, but he hadn’t responded and the next morning she woke up feeling so cottony and stiff that she’d laid in bed for hours, feeling miserable. “Really shitty, why?”

“I just haven’t seen you at the club lately.”

Dasha turns back to look at him. “Did you ever see me there?”

Zev shrugs. “No, but I used to see your guy around. With the other Doms.” Dasha blinks fast, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I haven’t seen him in a bit.”

Dasha takes a sip of her water, holding the glass over her mouth like she can hide the frown she can’t seem to pull her mouth out of. “Huh.”

“So, um-“

“I thought you were here to apologize.”

“Sorry.”

Dasha scoffs, wrapping her arms again around herself, fingers holding the glass by its lip. “That was great. Really nice job.” Zev rolls his eyes and says nothing. Dasha sniffs, her stomach roiling now. She wavers by the couch. All the feelings she’d forced from her body that morning are simmering again just under the surface. Dasha leans into them. “I’m pretty sure it’s over with him actually, so whatever dark, weird ass shit you want to tell me about him you can like, whatever, let it out.”

Zevran blinks at her, looking genuinely surprised. “Oh shit. It’s over for real?”

Dasha shrugs, sniffing again. “Probably. I don’t know.” She shakes her head, setting her glass down on the glass-topped end table. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“No,” he says firmly, “_no. _I just wanted you to be fucking careful. I didn’t want you to be so naïve about-“

“Well, I was naïve so,” she shrugs again, “you can tell me all his dark secrets now.”

Zevran blinks, looking off-center. “I don’t know any dark shit. Not about him.”

“But you do know him.”

Zevran shrugs. “A little. I know _about _him. I know he’s been in the scene for a long ass time. Like decades. Dudes like that tend to be arrogant as shit.”

“He’s not arrogant.” Dasha pauses, considering what she’s just said, then doubles down. “No, he’s a lot of shit but he’s not arrogant.”

“Forgive me if I don’t exactly trust your judgment these days.”

Dasha whips her head up to look at him full-on. “You know that’s really rich coming from you.”

“I know.”

Dasha swallows hard. Zevran’s chewing on the skin of his thumb, looking out Josie’s big paned windows. Dark circles pool under his eyes. He looks thin, much thinner than she remembers, but Dasha figures she’s really not in any place to say anything about _that _particular observation_. _“Do you think he’s a bad guy?”

Zevran takes a deep breath, turning finally away from the window. “Do you?”

Dasha shakes her head. “I asked you.”

“Nah. He’s on the shallow end kink-wise. Has had a lot of subs. Like _a lot. _Never heard anything bad once they ended things.” Zev fusses with the glass, dragging it across the end table. Dasha flinches at the sound. “But I just…these dudes, these experienced dudes, they can chew you up and spit you out.” He looks straight at her now. “Especially someone as green as you.”

“Yeah, well I feel pretty chewed up.” Dasha glances over at the windows, at the brilliant summer sky. It feels strange, all that sun. She wishes it was winter.

“It hurts like hell.”

She looks back over at him. “Is this something that’s happened to you, then?”

He recoils like he’s been burned. “I’m not talking about me.”

Dasha’s eyes linger on his wrists. The bruises are brutal. Dark, painful looking. “Right. Sorry.”

Zevran shifts on the couch. Dasha chews up the things she wants to say, but they stay rooted at the front of her mind. _Maybe we should be talking about you. _Zevran scratches at his neck, eyes darting. _Maybe you should dry out, maybe you should get some help. _She almost says it, almost reaches out and touches him. But she doesn’t. Can’t. Just like she couldn’t before. It had been a bright summer day then too. Sitting cross-legged on the floor on Sera’s third-floor studio, the air thick with the scent of resin and oil paint. There had been more of Dasha then, her clothes fit well. Her head didn’t ache all the time. She’d watched, sipping a beer, as Sera struggled to stretch canvas over a wide wooden frame. They’d both been out late the night before. A gallery show that turned easily into a party, ending up at one of the warehouses cum art collectives that lined the old meatpacking district. Dasha had bumped a few lines of coke. Just something to get a buzz on, to try and air out some of the tension that had been building up inside of her all week. She had prelims on the horizon then. A roommate whose boyfriend had practically moved in. Shit that feels like nothing now but had her all worked up that night. And Dasha remembers, in almost technicolor detail, glancing over at Sera, her frame hazy through air thick with cigarette smoke, bled through with neon, to see her finishing off an 8ball all on her own. She’d felt bottomless then. A fear so sharp and sudden that it felt almost violent. So that morning, there in the studio, Dasha tried to think of a good way to bring it up. To say, in so many words, that maybe Sera should just take a minute. That maybe she should see somebody. _Can I have a cigarette, _she’d asked, laughing a little when Sera gave her a cross-eyed look, sending her half-empty pack across the concrete floor with a quick kick. Dasha lit the cigarette, taking a deep, trembling breath. _You smoke now? _Dasha just shrugged. _Off and on. _Sera plopped down in front of her, lighting her own cigarette, picking some dried paint off her nails. And Dasha noticed, maybe for the first time, maybe way too late, just how dark the circles under her eyes had become. Sera shifted on the concrete floor, digging in her pockets. The cigarette burned steadily between Dasha’s fingers, unsmoked. _Just a little pick me up, _Sera had said pulling a little baggy from the pocket of her overalls. She’d popped a pill in her mouth, ran her finger along the plastic inside of the bag and brushed it across her gums. She’d gone cross-eyed again, twisting up her face and laughing. A deflection. _You need rehab, _Dasha had said, on a half laugh. Sera laughed back, almost a wheeze. And that had been all. “Have you thought about seeing somebody?” Zevran jumps and it’s only then that Dasha realizes that she’s set her hand down on his crossed leg.

His laugh is thin. “Yeah I’d like to get fucked more too.”

“No, I mean…” she removes her hand from him, not sure where she wants to put it, just lets it hang in the air between them, “like maybe seeing someone professional.” Zevran bristles. “Like maybe re-“

“I think we are edging dangerously close to the pot calling the kettle black territory.”

Dasha manages a weak laugh. “Yeah, you’re um…yeah, you’re probably right.”

He sniffs, looking back again out the window. “But thanks for giving a shit.” 

“I mean, of course, I-“ Her phone buzzes. They both look at it. Dasha looks up at him, like almost pleading. Zevran’s looked away, suddenly very interested in his empty water glass. Dasha swallows and picks up her phone. It’s an email. From Annette. Dasha swallows hard. She’s never opened them before, never read them in their entirety. The air in the apartment feels different. She slides the notification open.

_From: Annette Roberts <aroberts@humnet.ucla.edu>  
_ _To: Darya Lavellan <_ _ [dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu](mailto:dlavellan@humnet.ucla.edu) _ _>  
_ _Subject: In New York_  
_I am currently in the city for a MOMA event. Will be here until the end of the week. I want to see you. I am your biggest supporter, Dasha. Of your work. Of you. I respect your desire to leave. More than you know. But I want to talk this out. I hope you find that’s what you want as well.   
_ _-A_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the support all of you have given me <3. I have no idea how regularly I am going to be updating this, but I really appreciate how understanding you all have been. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading <3


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is even less edited than normal, so please excuse any glaring grammatical errors or typos. I plan to go back in and do some editing, but it's taken me for fucking ever to finish this chapter and I just wanted to get it out into the world so I can get back into the groove of this fic. 
> 
> TW: brief discussion of a suicide attempt

Why she agreed, Dasha has no idea. Not even the slightest inkling how she ended up here, again, lingering across the street from MOMA, letting taxis rush by her, the air they stir up fluttering her dress. The museum is emitting an almost candle-like glow, spilling gold into the blue air of the summer night. And that fear that sat like a rock in her chest the whole way over on the train has shaken loose. Vanishes entirely as she watches the little crowds mingle around the front of the building. It’s a familiar energy. One she used to crave, to thrive in. Those feelings return as she crosses the street. A rush of excitement, of pride. It fits differently than it used to. But it still, somehow, fits.

Dasha straightens up and starts up the stairs toward the museum’s arched entrance, all that stone glittering from the lights on the street. Another warm breeze flutters down the street, taking up the hem of her skirt, she presses it down, the gossamer fabric soft between her fingers. The dress is her own this time. Pulled out of the bottom of her still mostly packed suitcase. She’d hung it on the back of the door as she showered, letting the hot steam work out most of its wrinkles. She wore it under her robes at her master ceremony; wore it on her last night in Prague when she’d watched from the Charles Bridge the lights from the city skittered across the dark water, a bottle of wine clutched in her hand, the young curator of the Leica Gallery laughing at her side. It’s an auspicious dress.

Dasha takes a deep breath and looks back toward the museum, at its looming stone. _I hate art parties_, Sera told her once, leaning heavily against the brick wall of the Fowler Museum’s inner courtyard, batting a palm frond away with her hand. That had been the night of her MA show if Dasha’s remembering right. The beginning of what had become a steadily building notoriety, a sudden spotlight. The beginning of so much else too. Sera grinned, pressing her glass of wine to her temples to try and stave off an uncharacteristically muggy Los Angeles night, _I love art parties._ Dasha smiles at the memory. She continues up the steps.

The curator waves at her when she reaches the top step. Short, a little dismissive, but a wave nonetheless. A spark of recognition. Dasha wonders, with a jolt, if she _had _seen her that day with Solas and said nothing or if maybe there is something fundamentally different about her now. Something more recognizable. Dasha pulls at the hem of her dress, tries to fight off the vague, exposing feeling that settles in her gut when she thinks about it. Thinks about who she’s been all these months in New York.

Dasha tries to shake it off but instead finds it coalescing as she heads inside the museum. The lights are lowered in the atrium giving the room a slow, sort of momentous feeling. Its thick walls keeping the sounds of the city out entirely. In its place a low buzz of conversation, a thumping empty whoosh above that. Dasha winds through the crowd, slipping past vaguely familiar faces, ducking away from the vested servers and their trays heavy with champagne flutes and hors d'oeuvres. She thinks, briefly, of taking one of the glasses for herself, trying to bolster her quickly fading courage with some liquor, but she hasn’t eaten much today and the idea of stumbling drunk to meet Annette is so mortifying it keeps her hands still at her sides.

She tries to take a deep breath, but her chest keeps tightening, her fingers a little numb now at the tips. She had hoped, or feared maybe, that Annette would be waiting for her at the entrance. That she could feel that terror right away, could face it all head on. But she wasn’t and Dasha doesn’t see her now as he wanders through the reception so a slow simmering fear has started just under her ribs. Because while she’s been here before – both to this place and to events just like this one – it all feels like a strange echo. And she feels like an interloper, an intruder. Like she’s trying to pull on a mask that fits strangely now, that’s been stained, warped, in some dark, unfixable way. Dasha winds around toward the bar. It’s one of those rent-a-bars, white tablecloth draped over a rickety metal frame, the man behind it looking off-center, fussing with his bowtie. It’s in the far corner of the room, closest to the front windows. She takes a couple of the steps up to where it is, giving herself some elevation to scan the room. It’s hard to focus with her heart pounding this loudly in her chest.

She could run, Dasha thinks. Just turn heel and hail the nearest cab, go back to Josie’s place and curl up on her bare mattress. The thought depresses her. The stakes seem higher now.

Annette, as it is, is the one who finds her. Calls her name from across the room, heads over, the crowd parting around her. She’s smiling. The laugh lines on around her mouth, her eyes, crinkling in a way that is so familiar, so fucking familiar, that Dasha cries out, the sound lost in the hum of chatter all around her. She’s got her dark hair pulled messily up off her shoulders, long, flowing kaftan secured at the waist with a turquoise belt that matches the enormous squash blossom around her neck, the teardrops of turquoise dangling from her ears. Dasha fights the sudden urge to cry, a quick swell of gratitude blooming in her chest. And then, for the first time in their four-year relationship, Annette sweeps her into a warm hug. Dasha’s stiff at first, a little stunned, but when Annette squeezes, Dasha finds herself squeezing back, holding on for dear life. “Oh, Dasha.” She breaks free from the hug, holding Dasha at arm’s length. “You’re here.”

All Dasha can do is shrug, smiling a little sheepishly. “Seems like it.”

“Have one,” Annette says, plucking two skewers from a passing tray and handing it to Dasha.

She examines it. A date wrapped in bacon, a bit of soft cheese poking out from the center. It smells sweet and warm and delicious. Dasha tries to hand it back. “I’m alright, thanks.”

Annette brushes her off. “You’ve lost weight.”

“Stress will do that to you.” Dasha stops, bites back the urge to laugh. It’s the most honest she’s been about it. Even to herself. She examines the date, turns it around and around between her fingers, then plops it into her mouth. It goes down rough. She tries not to think too hard about it.

“We don’t have to make a lot of small talk,” Annette says, winding through the crowd. The museum’s put their Hilda af Klint collection on the walls of the atrium, presumably for Annette’s keynote and the two of them duck under the shadow of one of her enormous murals. Looping pastel shapes, tonal color flashing against a solid, somehow lush blot of paint. They’ve always made Dasha’s stomach flip, like when her mom used to take the gullies fast in their old beat-up truck. “I’m about to here with socializing.” Annette laughs at herself, then glances back at Dasha. “Did you come to any of the talks today?”

Dasha balks. She’d thought about it, took off a few hours early at work to make time to, but the idea had terrified her so much she’d spent most of the afternoon in Josie’s bathroom. It was easier to obsess about her clothes, her hair, than try and even imagine herself back in the fold with Annette. “No, I didn’t…get a chance to.”

“Good,” Annette snorts, plucking a champagne flute from another passing tray, “none of them were worth your time.”

Dasha laughs, incredulity blooming back into that old feeling she used to get in Annette’s office when the two of them would bat ideas around, just chat. Safety, she realizes, that sweet sense of easy security. “What about yours?”

“Especially mine.” Dasha can’t help but smile. They’re still weaving through the now dwindling crowd. Annette’s waving, leaning over to kiss a few people on their cheeks. Some of them recognize Dasha, make like they’re going to start a conversation, but each time Annette waves them off. _We’re in a hurry, _she’ll say with a quick flick of her wrist, _send her an email. _And each time that rush of gratitude she’d felt when she first saw her swells.

They head back toward the front of the atrium, toward the bar. Annette’s on her fourth glass of champagne, Dasha her second, and the whole room has taken on a sparkle. The hum of conversation soothing now. Annette turns again to look at her. “Saw a talk about Czech Black Wave this morning. Not here, mind you, at NYU. You would have absolutely schooled the presenter.” She scoffs. “I’ve seen first drafts of yours with better polish than that.” Dasha laughs, really laughs. She takes a deep breath and for the first time in so long, for the first time back in the city, her chest feels all the way open. Breathing is easy.

Easier still when they settle near the bar, their backs to the wide windows looking onto the street. Dasha’s lost in gentle thought, looking out at the other guests, at the art, when Annette clears her throat. “You know I tried to kill myself once.” Dasha glances over at her, not sure she’s actually hearing her right. Anette is looking out toward the crowd too, nursing her drink. “Pills.” She chuckles. “It was the nineties; you know how it is.”

Dasha swallows hard. “I don’t really know-“

“It was right before my prelims,” Annette interrupts, “I was nervous, of course, about the defense. We always are, but it was more than that. I knew I would pass.” She takes a drink, face puckering. “This champagne really is terrible.” She sets her glass down on the window’s sill, takes a deep, almost meditative looking breath, “Anyway, I knew I would pass. My advisor had all but told me so. But I couldn’t shake this awful feeling. This incredible, awful feeling that stuck with me all the time in those days. It hung over me as I walked to campus, as I read in the library, hung over me as I tried to go to bed at night. This feeling that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be the right thing. That no matter how successful I got, how many hoops I jumped through in pursuit of this final, elusive goal, none of it would make any difference, any difference at all. That I would be sad and angry and dissatisfied for my entire life.” Dasha is just staring at her now, knuckles white from how hard she’s holding her own glass of wine. “So I took a bunch of pills, figured it wasn’t _not _the most logical thing to do.”

“But you lived.”

Anette laughs, “you don’t say.” Dasha flushes, embarrassed, but Annette doesn’t linger. “Didn’t even have to go to the hospital. Turns out it’s a lot harder to kill yourself like that than the movies make it out to be. Just puked for a few hours and went to bed”

It’s hard to imagine really. Annette young. Annette scared and sad. Sad enough to throttle her own life. “Um..” Dasha glances around, worried now that the few people still lingering around the bar will hear. “What happened? After, I mean. What did you do?”

Annette smiles softly to herself. “I took the semester off.” Dasha blinks at her, her brain not yet totally processing what she’s just been told. “Drove out to Joshua tree and camped in the back of my car for a few months. Tried to get my head on straight, get my thoughts sorted out.” She pushes her half-drunk glass across the sill toward the bar. “Doctors put me on Prozac when I got back. Found a therapist I still use.” Then she turns, looks pointedly at Dasha. “So I get it, is what I’m saying. I get it. Maybe not all of it, but I understand the impulse to run.”

Dasha’s heart is pounding again, her fingers a little numb again. “And that feeling? The one that almost killed you?”

Annette smiles wistfully, eyes a little far away. “She visits from time to time. Can’t do much but let her stay for a few days until she decides she’s had enough and goes back to where she came from.” Dasha’s heart aches. That hole inside of it, the one that takes Sera’s shape some nights when sleep eludes her, the one that Solas has buried into, chipped off pieces of his own, it aches too. “I can pull some strings, get you some work here for a while.” Dasha turns to look at her, eyes wide. “Or somewhere else. Maker knows there’s enough shit for you to do in this city. And Maker knows you’re overqualified for just about all of it. We can call it your sabbatical.”

”But it’s not,” Dasha says firmly, “It’s me running from the program. It’s me losing my shit in your office and quitting.”

“You’re on leave.”

“I sent the most insane email to our DGS.”

“I read it.” Dasha blinks at her. “A little scattered maybe, but hardly insane. There’s nothing wrong with taking a year off.” Dasha opens her mouth to argue, scoffing at the idea of it, but Annette holds up a hand to silence her. “I’m proud of you.” It goes off like a bomb inside of Dasha. She nearly stumbles, feeling completely unmoored by what her advisor has just said. “For taking this time. Even if I don’t agree with the way you’ve done it, I can hardly blame you for it. Not knowing what I know. To know your own limits, to know when you’re tearing at the seams, and to pump the brakes, to escape through that open window. That is incredibly brave.”

Dasha sets her glass down roughly on the sill. She’s shaking now, fully shaking, her emotions too vivid, threatening to spill over. “Listen, I just…” she trails off and to her horror feels tears slipping down her cheeks. She wipes furiously at them. “Andraste’s tits, I didn’t mean…I didn’t…”

Annette takes her by the arm, tone hushed. “Let’s go somewhere a little more private.”

She intended to pull herself together on the way to the bathroom, intended, as they slipped inside the dim, art deco style room, to shore herself up, to tell Annette thank you, but she’s really fine. Instead, she collapses. Right into Annette’s chest. And she cries, loud and mournful and with her whole body. Like she hadn’t done the morning they found Sera. Or that morning in the hospital. Or that cold afternoon in New Jersey when they put her in the ground. And they stay there, just like that, Annette holding her tightly, brushing back her hair, until Dasha is cried out. Until she is quiet and shivering and lividly embarrassed. And Annette just looks at her. And then she sighs. “What happened with Sera was a tragedy. To the university, to the entire art community. To you. Personally. Above all.”

Columbia is, Dasha guesses, the natural place for a party like this to continue. The upper echelons here in her world tend to be wary of bars and suspicious of businessmen, limiting their options in Manhattan to pretty much nothing. The company of academics the most obvious, if still fraught, choice.

The afterparty is in a small but pretty little venue, big windows, thick ivy on the brick exterior. Close to a subway station but far enough from where Dasha knows the Classics building is, that as Annette leads her down the cobblestone path only a brief spike of fear darts through her, only a brief spike of longing.

Dasha doesn’t stay long, finds herself worn out before she even finishes her first glass of wine, at the tail end of her first conversation about _where she’s planning on going with her work._ This all reminds her of every other academic party she’s ever been to and the uncanny feeling is starting to grate. The thrill she’d felt as she left MOMA beside Annette has waned.

Dasha glances back at the crowd of people, feeling pleasantly detached. A little free. She’s got a date with Annette in a few days, a hushed promise to keep returning her emails. She doesn’t really want to stick around, doesn’t need to. So she orders herself another glass of wine and wanders off toward the building's veranda. The grassy knolls that stretch out in front of her seem to glitter in the night’s darkness, lit by the flickering electric lanterns along the cobblestone paths.

She finishes half her wine, then sets it down on the veranda’s top step. Dasha spares one last glance toward the party, then looks again out in front of her. There’s something about that dark stretch of lawn that seems to beckon. A solitude that she’s craving, a desire to be alone in her own head, with her own thoughts, that she hasn’t felt in so long.

So she goes. Wandering, tipsy now, off the veranda and out onto the quad. The campus on this side feels set apart from the city, the air thick with the smell of freshly cut grass. A few fireflies dart in and out of the darkness beneath a line of hedges. She watches them flit across the air and that’s when she sees him. He’s standing in the shadow of one of the campus’ stately stone buildings. Heading, as far as she can tell, away from the large library at the center of campus. He hasn’t seen her yet and there again is that distinct pleasure of watching him, of taking him all in. Solas rifles through the leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder, frowning when he can’t seem to find what he’s looking for. It’s familiar in more than one way. His long fingers, the handsome line of his profile. She remembers those fingers along her body, soft sometimes, tender when he wanted to be. But there’s something else familiar. She doesn’t need to ask to know where he’s been, what he’s been doing, knows the shorthand on his life. That painful reminder that they have so much in common outside the club, that they might have met, in some other universe, somewhere else. He sighs, pushing the sleeves of his sweater up, taking his glasses from his face and letting them hang from a cord around his neck. Charmingly old school of him. Solas straightens the bag on his shoulder, continuing down the path and it is only when he is feet from where Dasha is standing, that he stops, coming to an almost crashing halt. His mouth opens and for maybe the first time, he has nothing to say, closes it, swallows hard.

“I’m not here to see you.” The wine’s made her daring, and she doesn’t flinch from the wounded look he gives her.

His jaw tightens and he nods quietly. “Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to be.”

Dasha sways a little, the grass cool and damp on her bare ankles. “Do you wish I was?” His mouth tightens. Dasha watches a muscle jump in his jaw. “Do you wish I was, Solas?”

He scoffs, running his palm across his scalp. “It is nice to see you if that’s what you’re asking.” The silence between them swells. Solas glances into the middle distance, furrows his brow. “Were you at the MOMA?” Dasha frowns, feeling suddenly sober and taken aback. Solas looks at her, then straightens up. “I get their newsletter.” He says, by way of explanation, “have for years. I saw there was an event tonight put on by one of the preeminent scholars of anachronistic art.” He looks pointedly at her. “A professor at UCLA.” His jaw is tight. “I thought that perhaps…” He trails off, glancing over at the building from where Dasha’s just come. Some of the party has spilled onto the veranda. Loud laughter carries through the air. He looks again at her, something lost and totally unreadable in his eyes. “So this is what you do then.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

That silence again, thick enough to cut. He clears his throat, takes what she thinks must be a steadying breath. “Can I take you to lunch?” She hesitates, taken aback. It isn’t what she expected, not at all. He clears his throat and she gets the distinct impression that he hadn’t expected to say it either. “Another time then.” His mouth twitches down. She watches him look at her, really look at her, and then watches a tendon pulse in this throat, like he’s holding himself so tightly he might shatter at any moment. “You look lovely.” His eyes flit to her face. “I suppose I should expect no less.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. The incredible longing rising up inside of her, the incredible pain, are dulled some by the wine she’s had. And it’s easy, _easier, _to turn and to walk away. She walks away from him across the grass, toward the city, looking back only once to find his still standing there, watching her, the light from the building at his back casting a faint glow around his body. Dasha turns away back into the night, feels it rush around her, envelop her. There is a moment, brief but sharp, where she stops, has to fight the urge to turn around. To go back to him. There’s a spot just beneath his chin, cheek pressed to his collarbone, where she fits almost perfectly. It’s something that now she wishes she didn’t know. Dasha doesn’t look back again. Her hands curl into fists. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading <3.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short update after a long time but I promise I have a much, much longer update coming in the next week or so.

“So,” Bull sets two beers heavy down on the table, “is this about work,” the caps come off with a crisp hiss, “or is this about fucking?”

Dasha snorts, tucking her hair behind her ears. This is a mistake. She takes a long pull of beer. She knew it was a mistake before she called him, knew that even when the idea was still barely in her mind. “Fucking.” Another swig of beer. It’s expensive stuff. She can tell. Caramel-y, dark. An earthy taste that brings to mind a hundred different things. They tip into her brain. 200 calories in a 12-ounce bottle of IPA. She takes another swig. “I guess.”

Bull laughs that rumbling laugh of his and tips his own beer back, finishing it in three loud gulps. The table shakes with the force of the bottle when he sets it down. The table a painted metal that seems to be getter hotter and hotter with each passing second. It’s just one of many things in Bull’s densely cluttered apartment. It’s laid out like a rail car, low and narrow. The entryway bleeding into the dining room bleeding into the kitchen, just a single open window at the end. The air so hot and thick it sticks to Dasha’s skin. She’s sweating under her knees. Bull has a tv on the countertop so small Dasha could wrap her arms around it. He’s got it tuned to the news, sound off. Every so often a wave of static will shimmy through the picture. The apartment smells like cigarettes and garlic, like good olive oil. There’s not a free inch of wall in the whole place, not that she can see. Odds and ends, trinkets from all over the world. Dasha knows better, but she had honestly been a little surprised that Bull let her in at all. She quit two days ago. _Bigger and better things, _he’d asked after her last dinner shift. _Hard to say, _she’d said. Hard to say, she still feels. “Well then. Tell me all about it.”

It started with a dream, actually. Cheap exposition, really, to hinge all this on a dream, but it had been so intense she woke up gasping from it, grasping at her still bare mattress. And when she finally coaxed herself back to sleep, the dream resurfaced. A loop of color and sound. His hands, long fingers. The taste of him between her teeth. The dream was warm water. Pleasant sinking. An ache that walking away from him had soothed, an ache that being away from him only worsened. Because it wasn’t the dream that gutted her. It was the early morning hours after it, when the pale light of the sunrise bladed through her blinds, across her bare skin. It’s a quiet longing. A sadness that compares nothing to the well of grief inside of her but feels…fixable. And somehow that’s worse. Like she could reach out and touch it, take hold of it. None of grief’s sharp edges but instead a sudden, frantic feeling. Like the ticking of a clock, like rushing for the train before the doors close. She’d thought, briefly as stood alone in Josie’s kitchen, about going to see him at his office. But just the idea made her bright with humiliation. This, she had reasoned, was maybe the next best thing. Dasha takes a long sip of her beer. “I don’t really know where to begin, honestly.” There’s something dense about Bull’s apartment. Something that makes it feel, even with the window open, even with the sounds of traffic, set apart, cocooned.

Bull shifts in his seat, his wifebeater straining against his bulk. He’s too broad for this place, his shoulders filling up her line of vision, his head nearly bumping against the windchime he has hung over the table. “You break up?”

Dasha sniffs, looking down at the table. Dark swirls of paint dance across its surface. She traces one with the tip of her finger. “Hard to say.”

“Sounds healthy.” Dasha snorts. Bull shifts again, bending down, resting on his elbows, so their eyes are level. “Is this the part where I tip my hand?”

Dasha frowns, beer held just inches from her mouth. “Your hand?”

“I know your guy.”

Dasha swallows hard, setting her beer down with a soft clack on his table. “Shut up.” Bull groans as he stands, turning his body so he can slip into the kitchen. There’s a cut out in the narrow wall and Dasha watches him pick his way toward the stove. The light from the oven clock makes his skin look almost silvery. “Bull shut up.”

“You want some coffee?”

“_Bull._”

He puts a kettle on. Turns and leans down so he can look at her through the cutout. “Solas, right?”

Just the sound of his name makes her chest tighten, makes her fingers twitch like she’s reaching, reaching for something just out of her grasp. “Do I even want to know how the hell you figured that out?”

Bull screws the top off a jar full of sunflower seeds “Saw you two out around Manhattan a while ago.” He plops one in his mouth, discards the shell with a quick flick toward the sink. “Sorry to bore you. No deep digging required.”

It had to have been the day at MOMA, had to have been her rushing down the stairs, Solas letting her. Dasha shrugs the memory off and finishes her beer. It sloshes in her stomach. She eyes Bull’s sunflower seeds. She feels, as the light filtering through Bull’s lone window starts to wane, like she’s teetering on the edge of something. There’s a part of here, loud and getting louder, that just wants to leave. _Thanks for the beer, talk to you later. _Because she can’t really handle any more shocks, any more bad news. She doesn’t want to expand the contours of him in her mind. Except that she does. Now maybe more than anything. Dasha pulls her legs up crossed on the chair and turns to face Bull straight on. “So do you like _know him _know him?”

“Solas?”

“Yeah.”

Bull shrugs. “Not friends. Acquaintances really. We both got into the scene in the late nineties. Things were different then. BDSM was _way _less mainstream so you tended to kind of know everybody. But it’s been years since I’ve spoken to Solas.”

“Did you have a falling out?”

Bull chuckles. “No, no. I stopped going to Serpentine nearly a decade ago. Not a lot of reasons to run into each other.” The water in the kettle is boiling now, making a racket as it rattles against the uneven burner. 

“Why did you stop going?”

Bull stretches, a loud pop when he rolls his neck. “Nothing serious. I just waded into deeper waters.” Dasha wrinkles her nose but says nothing. “But I was there when his first sub left the scene.”

Dasha stiffens, can feel a story starting to rev. “What happened?”

Bull sighs, kneading at the base of his neck. He takes the kettle from the stove and retrieves two mugs from the cabinets above. “Hope you don’t mind instant.”

Dasha waves her hand noncommittally. Her stomach hurts. Bull just nods. There’s a precision in everything he does. From measuring out the granules to stirring in the water. Slow calculated movements that remind her immediately of Solas. Her chest throbs. “What happened, Bull?”

He sighs, rounding the corner back to the table and plunking their mugs onto it. When he sits down across from her, the table shakes. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t tell you about Mythal.”

It’s hard to imagine Solas married. Tied down. To give up his freedom, soften his aloofness. Dasha aches thinking about all the ways he would not. And yet. There’s a certain surety in the thought of a simple gold ring on his finger. An air of adulthood, of a measured stability, responsibility that rings so true in him. That drew her like a moth. Dasha wishes she had a picture. Could compare she and Mythal piece by piece, inch by inch. Would it hurt worse if they were the same or different? “Divorced for more than a decade.” Bull whistles, “shit, I’m getting old.” Bull had implied that, from the beginning, but it’s still a relief to hear it. A humiliating relief to know that for all the secrets he could have, that one isn’t it. Bull takes a sip of his coffee. The mug looks dainty in his hands. “Relatively amicable from what I heard through the grapevine. I think they stayed in touch. For a few years, at least. I doubt they’re in touch now.”

Even in the thick hot air of the apartment, it feels good to warm her hands on the mug, to watch the cream swirl through the dark coffee. “What does this have to do with me?”

“Everything.” Bull sets his mug down on the table. “_Everything. _She was his sub before she was his wife. And she stayed his sub until their divorce. And you’re his sub now.”

Dasha scoffs. “That remains to be seen.”

Bull ignores her. “He and I talked a few times after the divorce. Got coffee. Doms do that from time to time. Even if you aren’t friends. Not a lot of people can understand where you’re at.” He cracks another sunflower seed between his teeth. “I have no doubt that he feels responsible for her leaving the scene.”

Dasha’s heart is starting to pound, the sound loud in her ears. She thinks about leaving again but finds herself fused to the chair. “Did something happen?”

“I don’t know all the details. I just know that if I had been presented with a sub like Mythal, I would not have taken her on.”

Her throat feels thick as she swallows. “Why?”

Bull shakes his head. He turns to look at the window’s waning light. It falls warmly on his face. Golden. “She was fragile. Needed someone more skilled than Solas was at the time. Probably needed to put a pin in the whole thing until she got herself figured out. Like I said, I don’t know all the details. Just that he left the scene for a few months after. That she left for good.”

_After what? _Dasha wants to yell. _After what!? She presses_ her hands between her thighs. She can feel herself shaking, just the faintest tremble. “Did he hurt her?”

Bull’s eyes widen. “No! _No.” _Dasha exhales. Relief. Pure again. At least it isn’t _that._ It’s so many things, but not that. He taps two fingers on the table. “If he had done something like that he wouldn’t still be at Serpentine. It was much more complicated.”

Dasha brushes her hair back behind her ears. Her heart has slowed. Everything feels warm now, here in the dense quiet of Bull’s apartment. She hears the train go shivering down the tracks, a siren far off in the distance. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Another siren cuts through the quiet. Closer this time. Their mugs tremble as another train rolls by. “He ever talk to you about Dom guilt?”

The months feel like years, eons, whole lifetimes. The things they’ve said and done blend murkily together. But she’s fairly sure, with the way she hung on his words, that she would remember that. “What do you think?”

“Yeah, I guess that figures.” Bull rolls his wrist, joints crackling. “You ever wonder what it’s like to hurt someone you care about?”

Dasha frowns, straightening. She can see Sera teetering on that bottom step so clearly, the breeze brushing her hair across her face. “What?”

“To hurt someone you care about and to like it?” Dasha’s frown deepens, memories of Sera’s last night swept clean away. “To make an entire relationship about hurting someone you care about?” Bull rolls his shoulders. “Or maybe you don’t care about them. Not like that, but you respect them. And you still hurt them. You set up a whole list of rules just so you can do that.”

“I have literally no idea what you are talking about.”

He looks her straight on. “I don’t know exactly how you like to be fucked, Dasha, but I can imagine that sometimes he hurts you. And you’ve asked him to.” Dasha remembers the cane. Those livid welts all down the backs of her thighs, that fuzzy pleasure that spread all down her body. “A man dominating a woman. Come on now. What does society say about that?”

Dasha recoils. “That’s not what it’s about.”

“No, it’s not. But it doesn’t matter.”

“It _does _matter.” 

“Even someone who lives and breathes this shit can still second guess themselves. Can still wonder about their own motives. Their own actions. Why the fuck this shit gets them off. Good Doms are _supposed _to do that internal work.”

Dasha’s eyes waver. She reaches for her coffee then retracts her arm. Unsteady. Unsure. “Do you not think he has?”

Bull leans back, arms crossed over his chest. “Oh, I think he has. I think it’s consumed him.” He sighs. “Look, when someone gives you a part of themselves, entrusts themselves into your care, that’s huge. That’s so huge that sometimes it’s hard to hold. And he hurt Mythal. Not on purpose but he hurt her. And he’s carried that with him, I imagine, and now it’s hurting you.” 

Dasha hugs herself. Her brain is firing off. Sounds and smells. The echo of touches. All of it. The year condenses all at once and she’s left only with that feeling again. Like rushing for a train’s closing doors. “I think I’ve hurt him too.”

“Maybe you have. Not relevant though. Not right now. He’s the one with the experience, he’s the one who’s offered to take up the reins. There’s responsibility on both sides but I’d say, with this one, the lion’s shares on him.”

“I think I love him.” It comes out before she even has time to think about it, slips traitorously out of her mouth. And then it just hangs in the air between them. 

Bull tsks. “Bit of a complication.”

“Oh Maker.” Dasha rests her hands on her palms, takes a heaving breath. “What am I going to do?”

She texts him. Bull told her to maybe give it a little time, a little space, but the night air feels lush when she leaves his apartment and there are parts of Solas she wants to touch, new parts, parts she’d misunderstood. Softened by beer, the fear in it all slips away. That feeling won’t let her stop. That rushing for the door.

_I wonder about you _

_Almost all the time and I know how uncomfortable that will make you. _

_I wonder if you’re with someone else _

_Right now _

_Or ever _

_I don’t know_

_I’ll be on the train soon_

_And I wonder if you are too _

_You don’t have to respond _

_I don’t really expect you to_

_But I do think about you _

_A lot _

_More than I’m supposed to_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, for reading <3


	24. Chapter 24*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise haha! Two updates in one week.

It’s so hot the pavement has started to sizzle. Dasha watches it from the stoop, waves of heat rolling up from the asphalt, wobbling in the air. Her bare legs glisten in the sun, sweat rolling down her thighs. Not a single cloud in the sky this morning. A blanched blue. Dashes stretches out, leaning on her elbows, letting the sun touch every part of her.

The weed burns on the inhale. She hasn’t purged in three days, but she hasn’t really eaten either. A bite here, a bite there. The cream in the coffee Bull made the night before the most substantial thing in her stomach now. Josie left her half of a yogurt parfait in the fridge. She’s taken a couple of bites. Her stomach wrung out with anxiety. Useless. Aching.

That’s why she’s out here, that’s why she’s smoking this hastily rolled joint. So she doesn’t have to think. Not about how much her eating has really started to scare her, or the emails she’s sent off to Annette and the curator to try and brick back up the foundations of her life, or how Zevran has stopped returned to her texts, or about how Sera isn’t showing up in her dreams anymore. Or about Solas. The texts she sent him are burning a hole in the back of her brain. She has her phone tucked in the back pocket of her shorts. Sound off. It’s been like that since last night when she’d watched it from her mattress for hours, waiting for the light of a notification to break through the murky darkness. Not sure what would be worse. Nothing or something.

And she’s trying so hard not to think of him, to watch the smoke from her joint curl in the warm air and empty her fidgeting brain, that when he does appear in front of her, blotting out the sun, her first thought is that the shit she found in Josie’s dresser drawer must be stronger than she expected. Until he clears his throat. Because it is such a mistakable, corporeal sound that it jars her hard out of herself. She sits up, shielding her eyes from the sun only to find him standing at the end of the stoop, doing the same.

He’s in a pair of well-fitted jeans, a dark cotton shirt just tight enough to skim over his wiry muscle. He looks tired, eyes a little glassy like he hasn’t slept well in a while, but he’s still straight backed as ever, hands clasped behind him. Placid if she didn’t know him so well, if she couldn’t see the quiet hum in him. “Good morning.”

“What the fuck?” It’s all she can think to say. About this, about him, about all of it. She pulls herself more upright, thinks to ash the joint before doubling down, letting it stay burning between her fingers.

“I tried calling.” She stares at him, then slowly lifts herself to slide her phone from her pocket. He’d texted once. Curt and polite. _Are you available? _And then a single phone call.

“How did you find my address?”

“It’s on your forms.” She blinks at him. “Along with your relevant medical records.” Oh. Those. It feels like a whole lifetime ago that she’d stood at Serpentine’s bar, the black paint on its windows obscuring the afternoon light, and filled out those forms. Dasha doesn’t know how to feel. There’s a sharp guilt for the way the idea of him rifling through those folders for her excites her. A terror for the way she feels like she’s conjured him from thin air. A longing so intense her first instinct is to just double over and cry. But instead she just looks at him, detached from herself, unsure if the look she is giving him is inviting or warding. Maybe both. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I can go,” he says, straightening further, “I had assumed that after your text messages last night,” he pauses, mouth tightening, “that you would be amenable to seeing me.”

Dasha frowns, hesitating. It’s like the car ride all over again. When she’d pined and pined for his attention only to crumble under the intensity of it. But she’s just a touch stoned and some of that old curiosity has started to bloom back inside of her. She scoots over, making room. Solas brushes the concrete with his hand before sitting down, his long legs a little spidery as he arranges himself. He looks over at her, sniffing. “Is that a joint?” She just looks at him. “If I recall correctly, our contract stipulates no drug use.”

Dasha bristles. “Oh, go fuck yourself, it’s just weed.” She huffs. Her irritation spikes, all the simmering anger she’s held against him bubbling again toward the surface. “Literally. Get over yourself.” He raises an eyebrow. There’s a glint in his eye that makes her waver. A breeze comes rolling down the street, carrying the scent of the street vendors on the corner with it. Salt, sugar, fat. It reminds her of a hundred summer days before this one, sitting out on stoops, and it softens her from the inside. So when Solas holds his hand out, she just laughs. “I’m not giving you this joint, Solas.”

The glint in his eyes warms. “Impolite of you to not at least offer me a toke.”

Dasha looks at him practically cross-eyed before quickly recovering, wrinkling her nose. “A toke? What is this? 1993?”

He raises both eyebrows, hand still raised and waiting. With a huff, she relinquishes the still burning joint. “Were you even born in 1993, Dasha?”

Dasha leans back on her elbows, stretched out down the stoop, but she never takes her eyes off him, off the long lines of his body, his face. “No.”

Solas makes a contemplative sound then takes a long hit of the joint. It is so obviously not his first time. He cranes his head back on the inhale, then straightens back up, exhaling out of one side of his mouth, examining the joint between two nimble fingers. “There’s new research suggesting that weed is something of a panacea. Of course, there is also very old knowledge that says much the same thing.”

“Are you trying to confuse me on purpose?”

Solas glances over at her. “Perhaps you are confused because you smoke so much weed.” Dasha’s jaw slacks, lips just parted. A joke. He’s making a joke. The first one in maker knows how long. He raises an eyebrow, then chuckles, looking off into the distance. It’s a soft dismissal.

Dasha bristles. “I’m not some helpless little girl, you know.” It comes out of nowhere and Dasha rocks back, like she’s trying to distance herself from what she’s just said.

If it perturbs Solas, he doesn’t’ show it, just hands back the joint. He pats his hands on his thighs, then takes a deep breath. “No, you’re not. You are a grown woman who is, as far as I can tell, rather accomplished.”

Dasha just stares, letting the joint burn between her fingers. An ambulance goes rushing past. The air loud and bright around them and then nothing, deflated. She ashes the joint on her top step, mashing her fingers into the concrete. “Yeah, well, I’ve lit my life on fire.”

“Yes, I can see that as well.”

She looks up at him, incredulous. Her lips part again. He’s impossible to read, the sun blotting out his eyes, his expression as impassive as always. Dasha shakes her head, worried now that she might start to cry, that she might start yelling. But then she spots a bouquet of flowers on the stoop and they blot all other thoughts from her brain. Five long-stemmed sunflowers laying at his side, tied together tightly with a cotton string. “Did you,” she squints at him, “get me flowers?”

“Ah,” Solas straightens, retrieving the flowers, “yes.” He presents them to her. Dasha hesitates, then takes them, cradling them to her chest. “I was unsure what your preference would be. You have very delicate jewelry, I thought you might like something small, but,” he smiles softly to himself, “I thought sunflowers would be the most out of my character.”

Dasha feels woozy. Whiplash. Bent. She curls her fingers around the sunflowers’ stems, their skins almost thorny, petals dusted with pollen. Her heart pounds. Jumps around her chest. Delight and terror and a softer feeling, a safer one. Like the first night he’d ever touched her, that thick, murky quiet in his room at the club. “And that’s what you’re going for? Out of character?” He rocks his head back and forth. Not a yes, not a no. Dasha pulls the flowers tighter to her chest, their sweet woodiness rushing up to her. Sera drove her to Woodland the weekend after she defended her masters. A long, winding trip up along the coast where they’d stopped on lonely beaches to dip their toes, paying cents for mandarins from roadside markets, eating them with the windows down, gas station chips as palate cleansers. They’d gone to see the sunflower fields there. Miles and miles of flowers up to their hips. Dasha has a photo, somewhere lost in her phone, of Sera grinning, the sun glinting off her hair, the same color as those petals. “Sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers.”

“But not your favorite?”

“Poppies,” she says, like she’s forgotten where she is, who she’s with.

Solas makes a thoughtful noise in his throat. “How very Californian of you.”

She looks up at him. The sun has moved away from his face, but she still can’t read the look in his eyes. There’s a softness there, simmering deep beneath the stern placidness she knows so well. She can see it, see the way it’s tinged with fear. Dasha pulls her legs up to cross them, turns on the step so she can face him fully. “I’m from New Mexico, actually.”

“Good to know.”

Dasha cocks her head. It feels strange now, for them to be at eye level. A group of women pass by on the sidewalk, one of them glances back at Solas. Dasha wonders what they see, what they think this is. She flexes her fingers. A reminder that she can. That he hasn’t told her to stay still. That he wouldn’t. Not now. It’s a relief and a loss. Her brain hums. “Why are you here.”

Solas reaches over and produces a bottle of wine. She hadn’t noticed it before, like the flowers, all her focus poured into him. A well-trained impulse now.. He sets the bottle between them. “May I come in?”  
“For what?”

“To talk.”

“What about?’

Solas clasps his hands between his knees. “Us. I would imagine.”

Dasha’s heart lurches. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Something. I would hope.”

She flits around the apartment like a hummingbird. From the front door to the living room couch to the kitchen and back. The sun and weed had stilled her nerves outside but they are humming now, unleashed. And Solas has gone even more still than maybe she has ever seen him, standing near the door, his eyes in sweeping appraisal of the apartment’s front room. Dasha has never been more grateful for Josie’s eye for polish in her entire life. “Do you want some water? Coffee?” Her voice a pitch higher than she’s maybe ever heard it.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

Dasha wavers at the end of the hall. “It’s not a problem. We have-“

“Dasha.” She freezes. “It’s not necessary.” The air in the apartment slows, the soft light from the windows arching across the floor. He closes the distance between them in a few clean, quick strides. Close enough that she can feel the heat of his body, but too can she feel the gulf between them. Miles wide. “Dasha, I wanted to-“ She can’t take it, can’t take whatever he’s about to say and rises up to the tops of her toes, pulls him into a kiss. An echo. A loop. It’s a chaste kiss, just their lips pressed softly together, and she doesn’t why she’s doing it. Just knows that it’ll soon be over, that maybe she’ll never kiss him again. Maybe that’s why. Just to have a last taste of him, a last piece. But when she pulls away, he holds on, hands cupping her jaw, tongue coaxing open her lips. The kiss deepens. Dasha clings to him, fisting at his shirt, scrambling for purchase on his shoulders. She’s not sure if it’s her or him for who first heads for the couch. He yanks at her hips; she pushes at his chest. And then she’s straddling him, grinding hard against his jeans. Solas breaks the kiss, fingers searching along the hem of her shorts and Dasha can only lean on him, cheek pressed to his neck. She’s waiting for him to stop. That breathless recoil. His face snapped shut. But he doesn’t. He coaxes her from his shoulder. He kisses along her neck. Teeth find skin. His hips pulse when she moans his name. Solas seems to find a spot that he likes and starts in, yanking her shirt from her shorts. She holds onto him, grinding circles against him until she can feel him hard and desperate under her. “Pretty little girl,” he says, breathless. He manages to finally free her shirt from her shorts and pushes it up above her breasts, pulling her hard toward him, hands on her ribs, lips hot on her skin. “Always so needy, always so difficult.”

Dasha digs her nails into skin of his shoulders, relishing his hiss of pain. She feels wild, animal. “You make me that way.”

Solas tsks at her. “Oh, don’t give me so much credit.” She digs her nails in harder, both of them cant their hips toward the other. He takes rough hold of her jaw, pulling her into a kiss that feels punishing. A kiss that feels that maybe everything she has buried, he has too. When he breaks it off, he’s still holding her jaw and takes a moment to just look at her. Dasha blanches under his gaze, but it’s over before it really even begins and he’s working one-handed to undo the buttons on her shorts. She reaches down to help him, gasps when he rocks her backward, kissing her again, pulling his own shirt off over his head. There’s a ticking clock inside of her, counting down and down and down. He’ll be gone when this is over. She’s sure of it. And maybe he is too, the kind of sloppy desperation he’d sworn he doesn’t possess spilling over as he yanks her shorts down her legs, the denim tangled around her knees. Solas spreads her with his fingers. Dasha shivers, she can feel herself dripping down his fingers. Brutally wet. Pulled taut to snap. Solas’s fingers are wet when he drags them across her thighs. He holds her by the hips, his lips pressing against her collarbone, whispering something she can’t make out into her skin. Then in a single, clean movement he pulls her forward, eases her down onto him. There’s something almost tender about it, soft and gentle. He squeezes her hips. The pressure lingers.

He’s brutal. Hips pistoning, hands bruising. Like he’s trying to work something out of her body, out of his own. Dasha lets him fuck her, digs her nails into his shoulders again to remind him that _she _is letting _him _and not the other way around. It’s his turn to be desperate, his turn to be out of control. Maybe he knows. He thrusts up hard and deep and hits a spot inside of her that unfurls. She loses her tempo, orgasm creeping up her spine, blooming between her hips. “Oh shit, oh _maker_.”

Solas slows his hips, takes her chin between his fingers. “Not until I say, Dasha.”

“I don’t have to listen to you.” Delight snaps across his face. He reaches up and curls his fingers around her throat. Not squeezing, just holding. A tranquilizing weight. And then he starts to fuck her again, thrusting hard and fast, the sound of their bodies obscene in the hush of the apartment. Her orgasm races back up on her. Maybe he can tell – all those quiet hours at the club, learning her by heart, always with the upper hand – because he starts to pound harder. Relentless. She’s shaking in his grip, head heavy on his shoulder. “Please.” She moans into his throat.

“Please?” His voice has gone ragged, ‘What a surprise. A good girl after all. Waiting for me to let her.” Dasha nips at his chin and his chuckle rumbles against her, chest to chest. She can feel his own hips stutter, feel his grip on his rhythm fall away. He snakes his hand between their bodies. His fingers find her and the pleasure that has been rocketing through her lands hard between her hips. She sits back, one hand steadying her on his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Cum, Dasha.” He thrusts up harder. “Cum on my fucking cock.“ She does as she’s told, collapsing back into his chest as it rolls over her. “Gods.” His hips stutter again, hands hard on her hips, and then he rocks her back down with him. She can feel the heat of him inside her, feels the muscles of his chest tense then release. The hush in the room overtakes them. Dasha’s sure she can hear her own heart and the hazy calm her orgasm dragged up her is quickly replaced by a stirring panic. Because he’s going to leave now. Scold her, himself. He’s going to slam himself shut and all this heat, all this heat roiling between them, will vanish. Cold and stoic and gone. But instead Dasha feels his hands come up alone her back, feel them trace her ribs, his fingers meeting at her spine. With a grunt, he rolls them both over. Lays back onto the couch, pulls her with him. Her head fits easily in the crook of his neck and like he notices too, brings one hand to the back of her head, pressing her there. His cock begins to soften against her thigh. The sun spills over them both. “We should shower.” His voice sounds almost drowsy. He runs his hand down her flank, brushes his thumb along the curve of it. The touch begins and ends her world.

Solas runs the shower. Dasha watches him, perched on the toilet lid. She can feel him dripping from inside of her, down her thighs. Obscene. _Hot. _Josie is going to lose her mind. Maker knows what the couch looks like. Maker knows what will happen if Josie decides to come home for lunch. It's too late to worry about it now.

Dasha watches condensation build on the mirror as the water runs. Steam drifting in the air. Solas is nude now, his jeans folded neatly beside the sink, somehow still so composed even with nothing on. He tests the water with his palm then reaches out for her, easing her into the shower. And then, to her shock, he steps in after her. For a moment, they are still and silent. Then his hands find her. He presses his cheek to her neck. She can feel his breath, feels his hands roam her. She shudders when he runs his fingers between her legs, still sensitive, and his cock twitches where it’s pressed against her bare back. His soft _sssh _disappears into the water’s spray.

She reaches back, lets her fingers curl around his head. _Stay _she tries to tell him with her touch, _this time stay._ He tightens his hold, arms around her, holding her closer to him. She can feel his heart. Steady. “Dasha.” She exhales steam. He holds her tighter. “Dasha, we have to talk this through.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3 <3 
> 
> Slightly unrelated: I’m toying with the idea of maybe doing another Solas/Lavellan AU but this one set in Arlathan. It’s way out of my wheelhouse as far as genre goes (fantasy man, how do you even write that?) but it’s something to look for down the line (possibly sooner rather than later?) if that sort of thing interests you!


	25. Chapter 25

They don’t. Not right away. He watches her towel off, lingering at the shower door, knuckles white from how tightly he’s holding onto the glass. She can feel him watching, bends over so the long lines of her legs extend, so the wetness between them can catch the light. His hands on her hips aren’t a surprise.

He fucks her on the bathroom tile. Her hair splayed around her head. The shock of the cold tile against her back, the heat of his body cradled between her thighs. He fucks her so hard that they inch across the slick tile with each thrust and Dasha fantasizes that this sudden loss of control, this urgency that she can feel beating in the spots where his fingers dent her own skin, is because he’s afraid too that this will be the last time he can touch her, fuck her. Like whatever he has to say, whatever he thinks she’ll say, will break them. Shatter what’s already brittle. He cums before she can, hovering just a few inches above her, the muscles in his arms taut from holding himself up. A bead of sweat slides from his neck to her sternum, drifts down between her breasts to the concave of her hips. He holds himself there for a beat, both of them panting, then flips her with an almost brutal efficiency onto her knees. He steadies her hips. She can feel his heart beating in his palms. Steady. Fast. He spreads her ass, opening her more to him and Dasha can feel his cum dripping from between her legs. Her thighs wet and sticky. The mess of her drips onto the floor. Obscene. _Hot. _She rocks backward. Toward him. “Don’t move.” She stills. It’s easy. Even after all this time. After everything. Dasha can hear him crouching behind her, the crackle of his joints. _Old man, _she wants to tease. It shouldn’t be this easy. It shouldn’t break her heart like this. He drags the backs of his fingers down the seam of her. A feather touch. “Pretty girl.” And then it’s just his mouth. His lips hot against her. Her gasp soft and light and she rocks away from the sudden touch. He holds her sternly in place. Then he devours her. Teeth and lips and tongue until she’s shaking, crying out. Until she can’t hold herself upright. She cries out when she comes, a desperate, almost pained sound that has her rocking back toward him, limbs bent and rigid. He smooths his hand up her back, thumb soft at the nape of her neck.

“Who’s Mythal?” She’s dressed now. They both are. She in a sundress she pulled from the depths of her still mostly unpacked suitcases, he in the clothes he came in, collar just a little rumbled from where she’d yanked it. They’ve been standing in her narrow kitchen, watching the water drip through the filter. Her thighs are still sticky. She can’t help herself.

His eyes widen and Dasha takes a moment to relish in this rarity. A man always in control caught now so off guard. He clears his throat. “I admit I am genuinely curious as to how you came to know that name.”

“You’re not the only one capable of digging.” 

He chuckles weakly. “No, I suppose not. We’re both academics. Such is our training.” That hits her squarely in the chest. A recognition, quietly, off-hand, of an even ground between them. She soaks it in. Solas shifts on his feet, flexing the fingers on one hand before quietly retracting them. “Can I make something to drink? To eat?”

“Are you not going to answer my question?”

He looks at her. Really looks at her and Dasha has to dig her heels in not to flinch away. “I’m trying to figure out exactly how.”

It’s a disconnected feeling, climbing these stairs to the roof. An echo. Different times, different places, different versions of herself. She’s done it hundreds of times. These stairs and dozens of others across the city. Parties and dinners and quiet, wine drunk chats drifting naturally, almost instinctually, up toward the roof. The only quiet spots in the city. The only places to go to feel a little less small. Dasha never imagined she would take him here. Up to the spot where she and Josie first cried together about Sera, where they all drank when Josie first moved in, maker, years ago now. It feels like they’re heading up to some deepest part of herself. She doesn’t feel prepared. But the apartment had started to feel claustrophobic, the buffeted air from the fan suddenly cramped and sticky. It’s cleaner out here, even in New York sweltering summer. Cool almost as they head over toward the far wall. She following his lead, he apparently knowing exactly where he wants to go. He settles cross legged on the concrete, long limbs graceful even on the ground. Dasha follows him down, sits just far enough away that she can keep her head hopefully on straight. Solas uncorks the wine, pours it into Josie’s glasses. Stemless, crystal. Dasha wonders what he’s pieced together from the apartment, what he does or doesn’t already know. “I used to live in a place like this. My first few years in New York. In the Bronx though. A little further out.” He smiles, wistful, looking out past the roof. She wants to imagine him young. It seems impossible. Like he must have always been just the way he is now. The sunset’s like a Rothko. A strip of orange at the horizon, up a strip of yellow, then white, then blue. She remembers his apartment, remembers tucking her hands between her knees, remembers the way he had loomed. He hands her a glass. She takes a big gulp of it, her heart picking up tempo. It’s red. Of course, it’s red. Dry, sharp. She remembers the silvery light of the moon on his hand that night he took her to the restaurant. She’s not the same as she was then. Feels doubled, tripled even. Closer back to the woman who smoked long cigarettes outside the Central Gallery in Prague, who wrote well into the night. Page after page after page. He still terrifies her. She still wants to curl up against him, wraps her arms around his neck. Dasha takes another long sip.

“My father beat my mother.” She glances over at him, both on their backs now, the Rothko sunset subsumed by pale night. He’s staring up at it, face unreadable. “For their whole marriage, he beat her.” They’ve drunk nearly the entirety of the wine, saying nothing important, nothing about anything at all, and Dasha was beginning to feel that familiar despair. That he had shut himself away again, regained his composure completely. That they’d talk in circles forever, that they would finally break apart. But now, with the cracks in him more obvious than ever, Dasha finds she has absolutely nothing to say. He doesn’t seem to need her too, stretches up to fold his hands behind his head, still looking at the stars. “They say, in the literature, that a predisposition to violence can be, perhaps, genetic. But it is certainly more common in adults who were exposed to it as children. As I was.”

Dasha’s brain snaps back into place. She sits up, looking down at him. “You’re not violent.”

He turns to look at her, eyes placid. “Am I not?” Solas glances down at her thighs, like he’s remembering the welts from the cane, from his own hands along her ass.

Dasha tucks her legs under her, self-conscious. “That’s not…I don’t…”

He lets her trail gently off. “Intellectually, I know that BDSM and domestic abuse are wholly unrelated. One does not precede the other, one does not imply the other. I know that. The evidence bears that out. My experience bears that out.”

“But?”

Dasha watches a muscle in his jaw tighten, then release. She feels it echo in herself, shoulders unclenching. “But there is a well of fear and guilt so deep inside of me that I cannot even fathom the bottom.”

“_Solas._” She reaches for him. He flinches from her touch, then leans into it, her palm pressed to his cheek. She’s not sure if she’s ever touched him quite like this.

Solas reaches up, so slowly she nearly doesn’t see him, and lays his hand over hers. “I try very hard not to hurt my subs outside the bounds of our contract. The worst blow I’ve likely delivered in the last decade just a twinge of disappointment when I ended a contract. And that has always been by design. Even with you.” He looks away, pulls his hand away and she does the same. He rests his crossed wrists over his forehead. A gesture so casual she barely recognizes it on him. “She guided me. Led me here. Mythal.” Dasha just stares at him. He’s tipsy, she realizes, jaw soft, eyes a little murky. Maybe he needed to be. For this. “She was the one who first introduced me to the lifestyle. First opened my eyes to it.” A soft breeze drifts over the roof. “She was quite a bit older than me. I suppose as I am quite a bit older than you.” The corners of his mouth quirk up, just for a moment. He looks over at her. “Do you know what a switch is, Dasha?”

“I can guess.”

He nods, looking again back up at the night sky. “She was one of the best. Taught me so much of what I know about being a Dom, about understanding a sub. That push and pull.” His sigh is heavy with memory and Dasha realizes he isn’t looking at the stars, he isn’t looking at anything at all, receded back into his own mind. “It was ninety minutes by train from Princeton to the City. My cohort went often. There isn’t much to do in Princeton when you’re young and it was nice to throw off the dregs of graduate school every so often. To slip into something else.” He looks again over at her. “I’m sure you know the feeling, though Los Angeles was likely much more interesting to you than New Jersey ever was to me.” Dasha flinches. She can smell cigarettes, the tang of Sera’s drugstore perfume. That dry, dry air; lips pulled back from teeth. Solas runs his thumb over her knee. Just a soft touch, like he’s pulling her back to him. “I met Mythal at a jazz club.” He chuckles. “I was only a little older than you are now, but I had an idea of myself as much older than that.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t even like jazz. But she did. And she liked me. Talked me into going back to Serpentine that night, put me in a set of stocks.”

Dasha finds it hard to imagine. “Are you a switch then?”

His laugh is warmer now, like the memories have settled easily over him. “No. And our dynamic bore that quickly out. But I found her so compelling that night, I imagine I would have done much more for her.” Solas sighs. “I am, it seems, willing to disregard many of my boundaries for those I find compelling.” He gives Dasha a pointed look. She swallows hard. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what went wrong. The finer details. Not to us now. We were married and then we weren’t. In love and then not. I thought I understood her boundaries and limits and then it became painfully, starkly clear that I had not.”

“Did you ever…hurt her…like…”

His eyes are hard when he looks over at her again. “Like my father hurt my mother? No, absolutely not. And yet I still managed to be reckless. Selfish. I pushed her harder than I should have but not harder than she wanted. Sometimes,” he says, voice quieter now, “masochism is like a disease. Sadism too, of course. You have to be aware of what you are asking for, and why. If it soothes the ache inside of you or inflames it.” His voice is steady again. “She was leading from a place of profound pain, surrendering a deep part of herself to try and please me. Now I would know the signs. Back then I didn’t. I was too green, and she had sway over me. I did everything she asked. Even, maybe especially, when I knew I shouldn’t”

“I’m not sure I understand.” But she does understand, just wants to hear it from him. Wants to keep him talking, wants to unearth all of him, all of this.

Solas rolls over onto his side and Dasha joins him, laying back onto the cold concrete. “Do you remember our very first night together?” 

Dasha flinches. It’s almost too much to be looking in his eyes now, to be remembering this. “Yes.” She can still feel the ghost of that first touch. She wants to curl away from him. Maybe he can feel it. He reaches out to run his thumb along her cheek.

“Do you remember what I said to you?”

“I…”

“I said that you were the one in charge. That it is you who really makes the rules.” Dasha leans into his touch. The air up here is cool. The sounds of the city muted.” It's true.” A frown. “It should be true.” He amends. “But I have a responsibility to understand you. To understand what your limits are and why. To draw the line. To keep you safe. And I’ve failed at that.”

“You haven’t.”

He brushes some hair from her face, fingers lingering. “I have. Perhaps I was afraid to dig too deeply, perhaps I kept myself blinded to keep myself safe.” Dasha narrows her eyes at him. “I knew I was in over my head the moment I saw you.” Dasha opens her mouth and closes it. She can’t think of anything to say, can only reach for him, press her hand to his chest. He lets her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so strongly, so immediately about a woman. And I was afraid. I…” he swallows, “suppose I still am.”

“I’m not her.”

“No,” he says firmly, “you’re not. But my recklessness hurt her deeply, as my recklessness has hurt you.” Solas frowns, looking off-center then back at her. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

"Do you want to leave?" Her voice is quiet now, just a whisper. 

Solas doesn't answer at first, the silence between them growing cavernous, terrifying. "No." She exhales. "No. I am just as afraid of losing you as I am of hurting you." He looks up, eyes almost pleading now, "But I have to do the right thing, Dasha." 

"Maybe the right thing is to stay!" Her voice echoes across the roof. She doesn't know where this is coming from, this fire, but she lets it spill over. "I want you to stay!" 

A smile flits across his lips, brief, before his mouth tightens. Dasha braces herself, still, for the retreat. It doesn’t come. He leans over to kiss her. Soft and slow, pulls her to him, one hand tangled in her hair, the other flat against her back. He breathes her name like a prayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3 <3 <3


	26. Chapter 26*

It’s them and it isn’t them. It’s the club and the roof and the car and the terrace at MoMa all wrapped up in one. And they were supposed to be trying to make sense of it. That’s why she’s here. Why she’d taken a cab all the way back out to Chelsea on an absolutely sweltering day, stood in the same elevator as it climbed floor by floor, tried not to feel déjà vu, not to feel too confident either. She’s here to renegotiate the contract. _Start again, _he’d said on the phone. Calling her now, not the opaque nothingness of text. His voice on the phone late into the night. His touch now fleeting on the back of one thigh. “Good girl,” he purrs. She preens.

Dasha can’t remember who moved first. Who kissed who. She supposes it doesn’t really matter now, his tiled kitchen counter cool on her shins, her palms. Her breath hot against the intricate pattern of his backsplash. They’d had a breathy discussion. Quick, full of his touch. Boundaries. Safe word. She’s naked now. Of course. He’d undressed her with the kind of clinical intensity she’s grown so used to, his own clothes still on and untouched. But it had felt…different somehow. Warm, maybe. Still teetering on that heady precipice of fear, tipping over into the unknown, but he’d kissed between her shoulders blades as he pulled her shirt over her head, soft and sweet.

She sways her hips at the thought. His hand rests on the small of her back. “Now, now, Dasha. I know you’re out of practice, but when I tell you to stay still,” he swats her on one cheek, she cries out, “I mean it.” She inhales sharply, has to pour all of her focus into her hips to stop them from rocking back toward where he’s standing behind her. Her brain is that dizzy, lush blank that she’d felt the very first night with him. His demand for perfection, concentration, submission feels freeing. Feels easy. Back behind her, sitting nearly on the dining room table, there’s a folder with their old contract in it. He presses his thumb to her clit. She tenses every muscle in her body to stop herself from moving and there’s a dichotomy there that snaps right through her, the softness of his fingers and the rigidity of her own body and she wonders, briefly, if he knows exactly how this will feel. If that’s why he’s told her to do it. There are new contours to him now. A fuller picture. It only makes the feeling headier. “You’re so excited.” Dasha shivers. “So very wet for me and I’ve barely touched you.” He drags two of his fingers up until, slick with her, they find the tight bud of her ass. “I’m surprised you’ve never been fucked here before.” She hears him wet his thumb with his mouth then feels him circle around it. Softly, softly, narrower and narrower until he’s pressing just gently inside of her ass. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve been someone’s first.” He kisses along her tailbone, the heat of his breath skimming out across her skin. The lube he’s spread along his fingers feels tacky against her skin, another layer of sensation. “Unbelievable really,” she feels his lips along the curve of her ass, palms smooth on the outsides of her thighs, “that someone hasn’t fucked you here.”

“Why?” A quick slap to the back of her thighs sends a jolt through her. Dasha exhales loudly. “Why, Sir?”

Solas smooths the spot he hit with his palm. “Because you’re so beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” A shiver rolls down her spine, the sensation spreading out across her hips. “When I saw you, that first night,” he nips at her, “I wanted to do everything to you.”

It’s cold to the touch. Dasha rocks away from it and even though he’s told her not to move, Solas only puts a steadying hand on her flank to correct her. “It’s small,” he reassures, running the plug again over her ass, “and metal is usually easier to take than silicone. Especially for your first time.” The idea seems to excite him and she feels him slip his other hand between her legs, brushing softly against her clit. The touch is brief, just a reminder, before it’s gone, hand drifting up her spine. “Rock back.” She hesitates. “Rock back, Dasha.” She hesitates again and he must be able to feel it because his thumb starts those smooth circles again along her spine. “Slowly,” he tells her, “it won’t hurt you.” So she does, tipping her hips so the chill against her ass becomes a mounting pressure. He moves his hand to her clit again, a soft rhythmic pleasure that goes nowhere. That builds and builds and builds and soon she’s rocking in time with it. Rocking back until, with a gasp, she seats herself onto the plug all at once. There’s a fleeting sting, but then that pressure settles between her hips. Makes everything feel heavier. Her head, her limbs. She’s so wet she can feel herself dripping onto his fingers. “Good girl.” He presses his thumb against the base of the plug, just a slight movement inside of her but it makes her groan, forehead pressed now against the tile. “How does it feel?”

“Full,” And then, because it has been so long, because these old grooves have been paved over, nearly forgotten. Sir.”

He makes a contemplative sound in this throat. “I like you like this.” She tenses when he slips a single finger inside of her, the dual pressure strange, but when he starts to move, a slow in and out, the pressure blooms again to pleasure. “Full of me.”

Dasha groans. “Oh maker.”

“Does it feel good, Dasha?” He adds another finger, then a third.

“Y-yes.” His fingers pick up tempo and Dasha leans hard onto her forearms. “Oh g-god. Oh my god.” The heat between her legs builds steadily, faster and faster and when she’s sure she’s about to tip over, Solas stills his hand. Her whole body goes shock still and she has to bite back a shout.

She can hear his chuckle from behind her. “Now, now, I can’t be expected to do all the work, can I?” She practically hisses at him. “Work for it, Dasha. Fuck my fingers. Make yourself cum.”

Dasha digs her palms into the countertop, trying to find leverage. Her hips are trembling, thighs rocking a little from the effort it’s taking her to stay up. But she wants him. Wants to cum around his fingers, wants to feel that sweet, shaking release, to press back into his touch. And she’s so close. So close that she’s mewling, shivering all down her body. Heat and pressure and the sloppy wet sounds of her own body and then nothing. He’s pulled out. A shock. She rocks back, stunned. “Fuck, fuck. I…I...”

“Poor girl.” His voice, mocking. He moves his fingers again to the plug, pushing and pulling. Softy, shallowly. The space between her legs feels like a solid wall of sensation. It creeps down her legs, spreads up her belly. “My poor girl. So desperate.” Dasha pants, her neck aching as she tries to hold herself up. “Perhaps you think me cruel.”

His fingers ghost over her pussy, just the barest of touches. “_Please. _Please, Sir. Solas. Please, fuck. Oh my god. _Please._”

His hand dips back between her legs, a feathered touch. When he next speaks, his voice seems almost far away. “I think it’s time I took something for myself.” He flips her easily, a reminder of that strength he so rarely uses, pressing her knees wide so she’s open to him. Open and dripping and so desperate to be touched that she starts to babble. Soft nonsense that seems to soften him too. Lips slack, eyes warm. His hands come to her sides, like he’s trying to soothe her. He’d discarded his shirt sometime between when he first guided her to her knees and now, his jeans hanging around his thighs, cock turgid and slick at the tip. The first thrust is almost tranquilizing. Like everything in her body has readjusted to make room for him. The pressure between her hips coils tighter and she reaches for him on instinct, fingers curling around the back of his neck. He leans forward, the wiry muscle of his arms taut as he holds himself up, leverages his own strength to fuck her hard against the backsplash. She takes it, holding tightly onto him, body tight as a bow, soft in all the places where she touches him.

He looks like a god like this. Or something like it. A Grecian hunter from a Rococo painting. Reclined on a rug, one arm resting on the seat of his couch. Still shirtless, pants back in place. He looks maybe more at ease than she’s ever seen him. Contemplative, yes, perhaps even deeply, darkly in thought, but she can see it plainly on his face now and she wonders if she has changed or if he has. The light shifts though his windows, gold skittering over his bare skin. It falls onto Dasha too, her back to the window, cross-legged across the rug from him. From here, she can take the rest of his apartment in. Tidy in a way that doesn’t surprise her. Neat stacks of books and polished stones and knickknacks that she imagines he picked up from one of the archeological digs she’d seen on his CV. It’s easy to imagine him out there, her approximation of what it might be like, standing in the ruins of a dusty site outside Athens, sleeves rolled to his elbows, one hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. She imagines those are long, hard days, wonders as her eyes drift across the apartment if it was in Greece where he first became enamored with orchids. Because he is so clearly enamored with them. An orchid on the coffee table, one on his desk across the room, three orchids lining the windowsill. “You seem to like fussy things.” Breaking the quiet, sending ripples out toward him. She nods toward the coffee table orchid when he raises a single, questioning eyebrow. “Is that why you picked me?”

He chuckles then glances over at the table, taking one of the orchid’s petals between his fingers. “We use sex to avoid talking.”

It comes seemingly from nowhere and Dasha wonders how long he’s been working out how to say that or if it just bubbled up from the depths of his brain. She shrugs, taking a sip of the coffee he made her. She’d watched like a hawk as he spooned sugar into it, but now, with the warmth of the sun on her back, her body worked over, she feels just dazed enough to let it go. “Probably.”

He looks her straight on. “It’s really not a matter for debate.” She scoffs, taking another sip of coffee. From the corner of her eyes she sees just the faintest flicker of a grin cross his mouth before he settles back in, releasing the orchid. “Any pain?” He asks, stirring his own coffee, pale with cream.

Dasha shifts her hips. Her shin brushes against his forearms. She leaves it there. He lets her. “No,” she says, honestly. She’d expected it, really. Tense when he guided the plug from her. His breath still heavy, but focused, so focused on her. But she’d felt nothing. Just a sudden release of pressure, a faint hum of pleasure.

“Good.” He says, firmly. “There shouldn’t be any. The plug I used was relatively narrow, though I’m sure it felt quite otherwise.” He takes another sip of coffee. “We can train you slowly. So you can take more. Maybe eventually take me.”

Dasha raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “I suppose it’s something we’ll have to discuss when we renegotiate the contract.” He takes a long sip of his coffee, then clears his throat. Dasha, whose eyes had been drifting again across the apartment, glances back at him. “I have been wondering,” he begins, looking off toward the other end of the apartment, “and since we are making a habit of divulging the deeper parts of ourselves…” Dasha tenses, holding the mug just a few inches from her face. “Why did you leave your graduate program?”

She swallows hard, setting the mug down on the hardwood floor. “My friend died.” Dasha’s not sure she’s ever said that. Not to anyone, not even to herself. The emails she had sent her committee, to the DGS deliberately vague. _In light of recent events; you may have heard. Something happened to Sera, _she’d told her mother on the phone. _I’m going to a funeral, _she’d said weeks later, _I won’t really have my phone on me_. Josie screamed on the phone, howled like Dasha had never heard a human being howl in her life. She’d taken her phone away from her ear, let the sound echo muted as she stood on the sun-bleached sidewalk of the hospital. Still sick, still shaking from her own night. Dasha doesn’t remember if she’d even told Josie exactly what had happened. She’s almost sure she didn’t. That intuition of hers legendary, crossing whole continents. _God, _Varric had said, _how in the hell, how in the fuck? _Zevran had just hung up. “My friend Sera died.”

Solas sets his coffee down on the table. “I’m sorry.”

“Because of me.”

The silence that rises up between them feels bodied, thick. Solas clears his throat, clears it again. Dasha doesn’t have the space to relish once again rendering him speechless because her heart has started to pound, like she’s just spoken all of this back into existence. Like she’ll close her eyes and find herself standing back at the mouth of that bathroom again, vision blurred, head pounding, Sera’s hand poking out from beside the toilet, the blue around her nails the first sign that something had gone wrong. Worse than usual. Something they couldn’t fix. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Dasha blinks at him, pulled hard back into the room, her thoughts still clinging to her. “I don’t know,” she says, even though she isn’t sure what she doesn’t know, what she’s even trying to say.

“Did you kill them?”

Dasha lifts her head to quickly to look at him that her neck twinges. “What?”

“Your friend.”

“No.” She says, firmly. Then wavers. “I mean…I didn’t…”

“Then how is it your fault?” It isn’t a real question. She can see that now. It’s more of his gentle prodding, leading her down the path he wants her to take, to the conclusion he’s already made. She won’t go. 

Sera smiling from across the couch, the steady thump of the bass in the other room coming up through the floor. Sera at the gallery. Sera on the best night of her life. Megawatt smile. The whole room in orbit around her. Sera with her lips pulled back from her teeth, gums blackening. Wrapped around the toilet. Left like trash. Sera gone forever. “Because I left her. When I shouldn’t have.” The rage is new, clawing itself up on the smooth back of grief. A quick, hot anger. For herself, for every single other person that night. How could they have left her there? Pieces of shit. How could not one of them gone to check on her. _How could you? _

“Dasha.”

She exhales. “She was showing at the Honor Fraser,” her voice breaks a little, wavers, “My friend. Sera.” How long has she been since she said her name out loud? Ages. Maybe a whole lifetime. “It’s a gallery. Kind of a big fucking deal actually.” She looks down at the floor, worries the lip of her mug with her fingers. “There was a party afterward. A lot of coke. It was laced, I guess. Fentanyl, probably.” Solas is quiet, watching her intently, still as a statue. “It made me sick. And it killed her. I was the one who found her.” She pulls her legs up closer to her body, arms wrapped around herself. “I don’t really…the details aren’t…”

His hand on her knee is a surprise. She hadn’t heard him move closer to her, had been staring off at a middle distance where he hadn’t been. “I understand.” His thumb runs soft circles on her knee. So narrow now. There’s so much of herself she left back in California, back in the doorway of that bathroom. “I’m sorry. That is an awful thing to have to carry with you.” Dasha takes a long deep breath. When the shock wore off, she’d cried for days. Cried the whole way on the plane back to New York, in Josie’s apartment, in the carpeted bathroom of Sera’s parent’s house in New Jersey, all pink porcelain and potpourri. And then months of swallowing tears, biting them back. To prove what? To accomplish what? But here, with the sun still warm and waning on her back, she doesn’t feel the need to do either. She feels wiped clean. A quiet, sunny stasis. “When did she die?”

“This year. Early.”

He makes a contemplative sound in his throat. “So this is the bad thing.”

She glances up at him. “What?”

“When we first met, I asked you why you had come to the club. And you told me that something terrible had happened to you." His hand moves from her knee to her shin, holding, squeezing. "I’ve thought about it a lot since then. Wondered what it could have been. And I suppose it's this.”

“Yeah.” Dasha straightens up, brushes a few strands of hair behind her ears. She carves out more of him in her head. A man who has thought of her. Thought of her often. Sat at his desk, laid in his bed and wondered. About her. “I left the program pretty much immediately after she died. I guess I kind of…lost it. I came back to New York because…I didn’t know what else to do.”

“We do the best that we can.”

Dasha’s laugh comes out humorless, dry in her mouth. “She would be so mad at me.”

“Your friend?”

“Yeah. For running. Especially on her account.”

Solas reaches to brush some hair off her forehead. “I think, perhaps, she would understand.” Their eyes meet and for once Dasha doesn’t waver from his gaze. “It’ll be dark soon,” he says, rising to his feet, extending his hand to pull her up after him, “why don’t you stay here for the night?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	27. Chapter 27

Dasha wakes up tangled in him. His arm around her hip, their legs spidered together. His bedroom, up a short, curved little staircase has the kind of natural light she knows doesn’t come cheap in New York City. And it spills over them both, a long line of light falling over their bodies, skin to skin, like there’s nothing separating them anymore. Dasha feels herself like a dream, turns over to kiss him, fingers skimming along his chest. There’s no hair there, which she’d noticed before but didn’t really think about until now, her fingers drawing paths along his pecs, the hard muscles of his stomach, the soft hair just above where the sheets have him covered. A trail downward. Solas blinks himself awake, mumbles her name as he reaches for her. He brushes the sheet from his body and Dasha finds him hard, cock pressed to his hip. She kisses him then rolls over to mount him. Solas exhales. His hands find her ribs; his hips rise to meet her.

Dasha stops a block from the apartment. Close enough that she can see Josie’s roof, but far enough that their third floor windows are hidden by the trees. There’s something about the sunlight, about the fall chill in the air. There’s a fear inside of her that’s different than it had been before. She looks up at him and sees that maybe he feels it too. He’s stopped beside her, hands in the pockets of his neatly tailored jeans. Josie will be home now for sure, probably having breakfast, starting her day. Dasha straightens. “Do you mind…” She swallows.” “I’d just rather not have to…right now…”

Solas chuckles, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he gazes down the sidewalk. “I understand.”

“It’s not that I don’t….”

He looks down at her. “I understand, Dasha. This is new. Slow is best.” She isn’t sure what he means, not exactly, but when she reaches out to take his hand, he lets her. When she squeezes it, he squeezes back.

Josie’s right where Dasha thought she would be. Sitting in a robe at the kitchen table, scrolling through her twitter or her email or the news. A cup of coffee steaming at her side, granola going soft in a bowl of milk. Dasha heads quickly past her, hand brushing across her shoulder in greeting. Josie looks up but Dasha’s already halfway down the hallway, already slipping into the dense quiet of her room. She’s had the blinds down for months but the darkness is a sort of shock, a pale sort of darkness in the room as the outside sun pulses against the blinds but doesn’t breach them. Dust motes drift through the air. Her clothes are scattered around the bed, some still half in, half out of her open suitcase. She’s slept here almost every night since she moved back in the spring but it feels like she’s seeing it for the first time. Not even a set of seats, just a single pillow. It’s good Solas didn’t come with her. Just the sight of it now makes her depressed. She can’t even imagine what Solas would think. Of her. Of all of this. She’s not even sure what to think.

Dasha slips her dress over her head, hunts around for a clean pair of jeans. She slides them over her hips, then heads back out into the hall toward Josie’s room. “Gonna borrow a sweater!” She yells toward the kitchen. Dasha doesn’t hear Josie’s response but opens her closet anyway, fingers skimming the fabrics until she finds a sweater that is suitably soft and suitably pretty and pulls it over her head.

“Where have you been?” Josie asks sleepily from the table.

Dasha leans down to kiss the back of her hand. “Busy. I’ll tell you when I get back.”

Josie nods, moans something like assent, but when Dasha is nearly out the door, she speaks again. “You look good.” Dasha pauses, hand on the open door. “You look happy.” The words feel heavy, hanging in the air. Dasha catches sight of her own reflection in the window. The sun too bright to make out the finer details of herself but she has more substance now, more than she’s had in a long time and that sparks a sudden, intense fear inside of her. A fear that mellows to deep, simmering guilt. How dare she have substance when Sera has none. How dare she. “Dasha.” She looks back over at Josie, who seems now to be fully awake, straightened up, “It’s good to see you happy.”

Dasha purses her lips, tightening her grip on the door. “It’s good to be happy.” And she says it even though happy isn’t exactly how she feels, even though it feels like a curse to say it, like a taut to the universe. She waits a beat in the doorway, then heads back down the stairs.

It’s the same cafe. The same hip surprise beyond that unassuming green awning. Still smelling sharply of coffee and pastry; still almost too bright. Solas leads them to the same wooden table at the back of the room and they sit on the same sides as they did that first day. But everything feels different than it did then. She can feel it so intensely it’s almost physical.

He removes a single blank notepad from his bag, clicks a pen. Dasha knows him now. That thrill of risk, of the frightening unknowability of the man in front of her has faded. Replaced with something that feels less sharp. But warmer. A familiarity that is maybe just as risky. Maybe more. He orders coffees for them both, settles back in his chair, and looks at her so intensely she’s sure he could take her to pieces. Maybe he already has. Maybe she has too.

Solas thanks the waiter as he sets down their coffees, then flips to the first page of the notebook. “The contract will need to be redone completely. It will need to look entirely different from the one we had before.”

Dasha takes a sip of her coffee, eyes never leaving him. “Oh?”

He hums assent. “It is no longer strictly sexual. It is no longer simply a professional commitment. The contract needs to leave room for our real lives, for potential evolution in our relationship.”

“Does this mean you have feelings for me?” It’s teasing and it isn’t. A bottomless feeling and an easy one. 

It rolls off Solas’ back. “I would imagine I have made that abundantly clear.”

“Oh?”

He looks up from the paper, gazed heated. “If you think I have chased other subs around New York City then you are gravely mistaken.” Dasha laughs, running her thumbs along the lip of her mug. She wonders what he would do if she told him _I love you_; wonders what _she _would do if she told him that. “We have already established rules around exclusivity. I don’t see those changing. The main issue we need to tackle is when our dynamic will be in place and when it will not be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t imagine you want to be engaging in D/s dynamics, for example, in front of your friends.”

Dasha blinks at him, almost incredulous. “You want to meet my friends?”

He’s still looking down at the paper, writing furious notes. “I don’t see why not.” Dasha isn’t sure why that feels earth-shattering, but she takes another sip of coffee to try and hide what she is sure must be shock on her face. “And it would be entirely inappropriate to have the dynamic in place should you, say, accompany me to a university gathering.”

“You want me to meet your colleagues?” Her imagination wanders. To Columbia’s stately old buildings, their dark, molded wood interiors, the soft sound of chatter at the end of a talk, a presentation. People lingering around the refreshment table. She at his side. “You’ve already met some of them or do you not recall our afternoon with Dr. Boskovic.”

She wonders how he would introduce her, if he would hold her hand. Her chest tightens. “Solas.” He looks up at her. “I just…what are we?” He purses his lips. “No,” she says before he can even open his mouth. “Please don’t deflect. Please just tell me what we are.”

He looks sternly at her and she can see now the way that’s most comfortable for him. The way he falls so easily back into it when cornered. “We aren’t anything unless you are in full agreement.” An echo. Of the very beginning.

“_Solas.” _

And perhaps he’s had enough too. Of the circling and the innuendo. Of the half-said half-truths. Because he sighs and when he looks up at her again, his eyes are soft like they had been that morning, when he’d held her face as she came, thumbs soft against her lips. “I want to be a part of your life outside of the club. I want you to be a part of mine. I’ve wanted that, fearfully, for a long time. Longer than I’m willing to admit.”

Dasha swallows hard. “I want to be with you.”

“Yes,” he takes her hand, slots his fingers between hers. “I would…like to try.” The silence that falls between them feels heavy, too dense. They both bristle, as if shaking it off, and Solas lets go of her hand, opening the menu that has, thus far, laid untouched at the end of the table. “Shall we order something to eat?”

Dasha freezes. Her brain fizzles. “Um…” She reaches for the menu then retracts her hand. She can feel Solas watching her, feel the intensity of his gaze even though she can only look at the menu in his hand. It didn’t use to be like this. She can feel that now with such intense clarity. A little fucked sure. She’s always been fussy with food. A little bit of a numbers game, a purge here and there, but nothing like this. Nothing like the way she’s gone barreling toward her own destruction this year. “I think I need help.” It comes out of nowhere. She sees Solas’ grip tighten. But she can’t stop now that she’s said it. Out loud. “Like maybe professional help.”

“Alright.”

“With my eating.”

“Yes.” She glances up at him. It shouldn’t hurt the way it does that he isn’t surprised. That he knows, probably has known for a long time. She thinks of herself in the mirror, in the window, feels herself begin to bring her hands to her collarbone before she stops herself. She realizes, with a sort of dull shock, that she’s not really sure how she looks at all. Much less to him.

“That should not be within the bounds of our contract.” His voice has always been cool, almost clinical, but there’s something about it now that feels almost painful. Her chest tightens. “We should be cognizant of these issues but that is something you need to discuss with a professional.”

“I understand why you wouldn’t want to take responsibility for-“

He holds up a hand and she snaps her mouth shut. “It has nothing to do with what I want. I would not delude myself or stroke my own ego by pretending to know the best way to care for this part of you.”

She blinks at him. Their hands touch again, just the tips of their fingers. “Right.” She swallows hard. “Okay.” And the gears start turning in her head. She should feel fear but what she feels, most strongly, is relief.

He's paying for their meal at the front counter when he asks it. Almost off-hand, not looking at her but at the tip as he counts it out and Dasha wonders how long he’d been thinking about it or if the question just surfaced in his mind. “Do you want to go back to your program? To finish?”

Her heart twinges. “More than anything.” And the answer comes as a surprise to her, but apparently not to him.

He nods, turning to her as he slips his wallet back into his pocket. “Good.”

The breakfast crowd is dwindling now. Just a few people still sitting at tables, their laptops out, nursing coffee. She quirks an eyebrow at him. “Good?”

“I read your article.”

Her mouth opens, then shuts. She frowns. “You what?”

“I read your article,” he says again, his voice still collected. “The most recent one. On that Czech Film.”

“Daisies?”

“Yes.” He chuckles, seemingly to himself. “Despite what my students think I can use a computer. And I have access to Ebscohost as does any professor.” Dasha barely remembers that article now, but she does remember Annette taking her out for beers after the issue came out, remembers calling her mom. Josie. Remembers laying on Sera’s bed, their fingers intertwined, both staring at the ceiling. _You did it, Dashy, you did it._ “You are…exceptionally talented.” It surprises her. Maybe more than anything he’s ever said to her. “_Exceptionally_.” He nods toward the door and they both take slow steps toward it.

“Thank you.”

He simply nods, a graceful cant of his head. And then, as the door swishes closed behind them, the sound of the street rising up around them, he turns to her. “I’m sorry that this has been such a dark season in your life.”

Dasha just stands, her thoughts suddenly so overwhelming that they smooth into nothing. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“It isn’t something that requires a response. I just wanted you to know.” He brushes some hair behind her ears, then straightens again. An abrupt pivot, but one she isn’t entirely ungrateful for. “I’ll type the contract out this afternoon when I get back to campus. You can sign it on Friday.”

“Friday?”

The wry grin that crosses his lips fills her with that desperate, roiling longing she’d felt the very first time she laid eyes on him. “You’ll be at the club on Friday. 9pm. Dress nicely.” He leans down to kiss her and she grabs at him, pulling his face closer, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Lips and teeth and tongue. His hands tight at her waist. When the kiss breaks, they just stare at each other, people brushing past them on the sidewalk. He’s warm under her fingertips. Solid. He leans in, breath hot on the shell of her ear. “I have no doubt that you’ll be on your best behavior.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m sure some of you are wondering: what the hell happened to Dorian? Well, friends. Let me tell you. The Dorian/Alexius arc was a part of my original outline that doesn’t really fit anymore. It would have made the fic much longer and less direct and I didn’t feel like that was where I wanted to go as I continued to write. I plan on going back in once I’m finished and doing the necessary editing to make that less confusing/glaring. 
> 
> Also: I have a twitter now. https://twitter.com/EbabelN I’m a little social media phobic so I don't plan to be too too active on there but will post my updates and also maybe some other things from time to time. So follow me to get updates and chat :) 
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading <3 <3


	28. Chapter 28*

He’s inside her up to the wrist. Just holding, but even from where she’s standing – just beside the bar, feet from where woman is on her back, splayed out – Dasha can see the woman tremble. Her eyes are covered in a silken blindfold, lips open, shaking. The rest of her bare save for a thin golden chain around her neck. Everything draped in black and red. Like what she’s seen in movies, in her own imagination.

The man with his fist inside the woman is older than Solas, his hair greying at the temples, but spry. She can tell by the tightly corded muscle of his arms. He’s dressed in only a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt. Dasha can’t hear what he’s saying over the woman’s cries but she can see his jaw working, can see him softly stroking the skin of her inner thigh with his free hand. Dasha quietly gasps. Solas has moved his fingers from the inside of her thigh to the center of her, fingers just brushing the soft fabric of her underwear, just the barest of touches. She turns to look at him but his other hand, gently on her jaw, tightens, holding her in place, forcing her to watch. He presses a kiss just behind her ear. The woman on the table groans, her thighs visibly shaking now. The man inside of her has started to move. Dasha watches her toes curl, her fingers twitch, wrists pulling against her restraints. Dasha reaches back for him, finds his hip, closes her fingers around the fabric of his slacks His thumb strokes her cheek. “Watch, Dasha. I’m still here. Do as you’re told.”

He met her outside the club again, what feels like hours ago now. A neatly tailored sport coat on over his usual button-down shirt. And she’d tried not to feel like a déjà vu. Like that hot afternoon when they’d gone to MoMa, when she’d fled down the street like a woman in a movie. The air had an autumn chill on it when Dasha got off the subway. And she knows him now. In ways she hadn’t known then.

He’d kissed her in the alleyway, brushed her hair back from her face. And she had, for just the briefest moment, rested her head against his chest. _A private party, _he’d said when they separated, _different than what you’re used to. _And it is. The club brighter than she’s ever seen it, sparser. The lounges in the middle moved out of the way to make room for a long, low platform. Solas seemed to know everyone. Everyone seemed to know him. He’d introduced her to the man who is now wrist deep in that woman. _Ah, _Solas said, his palm in the small of her back, bringing her forward to his side, _and this is Dasha. _He’d smoothed his hand up her spine, thumb circling the nape of her neck. _She’s mine. _The memory sends a bolt of heat through her, the woman’s moans now just a backdrop to the sound of Dasha’s own breath, her heart quick in her chest. Solas’ fingers skim the hem of her underwear, drifting down. She leans into him as he spreads her, her hand reaching back to curl around his neck. “You’re so excited.” He runs his fingers down the length of her. “Look at you. So wet. What a little slut you are, turned on by a sight like this.” Dasha stifles a moan. She can feel his turgid cock at the small of her back. The man slides his hand from the woman’s thigh, rubs his thumb softly against her clit. Her hips churn down onto his fist, so wet she’s dripping onto the platform. Solas nips at Dasha’s ear, pulling her tighter to him. “How many fingers do you think I could fit inside of you, Dasha?” He slips one inside, two. Dasha exhales, laying her head back against his chest. “Do you think I could fit my whole fist?” Her hips stutter. The woman has started to buck against the platform, hear head tossing back and forth. The man inside her has moved so he’s over her now, straddling her rolling hips. Dasha watches as he brushes the blindfold from her eyes, holds her face in one hand. He says something only the woman can hear and she nods frantically at him, mascara running rivers down her cheeks, their eyes locked. “Dasha.” Her whispered name brings her back to him, his fingers, three now, fucking her gently, almost slowly. “I asked you a question.”

“I don’t know, Sir.”

She feels the breath of his quiet chuckle. The room feels denser now. A few people are still milling around the bar, but most have come to watch the scene on the platform. She watches them whisper to each other. A few, drinks in hand, wander around the platform. No touching, just watching. One says something to man that makes him laugh. He reaches up to tweak the woman’s nipple. There’s a man on all fours near the platform, a woman in a red dress sitting atop him, stroking his hair. Just beyond them two women sit on her shins, nude save for a chain around each of their necks, the ends clenched in a man’s fist. Dasha is still dressed, the silk fabric of her dress bunched a little at her hips where Solas has slipped his hand, her ankles wobbling in her high heels. She can smell his cologne, so familiar now that she’s sure she could follow it like a lure through the city. His thumb finds her clit again, rubs rhythmic circles. She exhales. Beside them, a man has climbed up onto the bar, nude except for a leather mask over his head. His master starts to fuck him. Hard. Leveraging himself on one of the barstools to pound into him. Dasha watches, transfixed, his cries nearly rivaling the woman’s. Solas tightens his grip on her jaw, turns her head to face the platform again. “Do as you’re told.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

He presses a kiss to her cheek then shifts, angling himself so he can fuck her deeper, faster. Dasha’s can’t contain her gasp this time. The wet sound of her own body suddenly loud. She clings to him, the pressure building between her hips so intense that she closes her eyes. His hand moves from her jaw to around her waist, pulling her tighter to him. “Do you want to be fucked like that, Dasha?” She opens her eyes again. The woman has lifted her hips from the platform, the man’s fist still inside her. Her toes curl, her moans almost like singing. “In front of everyone? So that everyone can see what I already know. That you’re a messy, desperate little slut?” She shudders, shaking her head as she lays it back on his chest. “No?” He quirks his fingers, she trembles. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.” His fingers pick up tempo. Every muscle in her body begins to quiver from the force of him fucking her. She closes her eyes again, holding tightly to the arm he has around her middle. She can hear the woman moaning on the platform, the man on the bar, her own labored breathing. “Dasha?” She whimpers. “Dasha?”

She opens her eyes, the club coming back into view again. “Yes, Sir.”

His hand presses against her stomach, tighter now. And there’s something so intimate about that touch, about the way he’s holding her. Her sticky thighs squeeze together, spurring his hand onward. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, Sir.” Dasha starts to rut against his fingers, churn her hips down, the pressure growing, spreading.

“No one gets to see you cum but me. Do you understand that?”

Dasha hesitates, her hips still, his hand now slowly working her. “I…I…” The woman on the platform cries out. “I don’t know.” 

“You will not cum in this room. No matter what I do to you, you will not cum. Am I clear, Dasha?” But he’s still fucking her with his fingers, still crooking them up, still working her over. The woman is up tempo now, churning her hips. She is _dripping, _wet all down her legs, onto to the platform. Behind her, some of the men have undone their slacks, cocks hard in their hands. “Dasha.” The woman falls quiet and then, her head thrown back, cums. Loud enough to quiet the still fucking couple on the bar, spraying wet across the platform, onto the floor. And Dasha can’t help it. She cums on Solas’ fingers, biting down on her own hand to keep herself from crying out. His hand moves from between her legs to her throat, not squeezing but holding. She clenches around nothing. Terror and delight rush up inside of her. She wants to be punished, wants to have his full attention, wants him to work her body until her thoughts are easy and quiet. What he wants, it seems, is the same. “What a bad girl you’ve been.”

“I think I’m rather generous.” He’s slowly pacing, hands clasped behind his back, looking everywhere but at her. The room feels especially empty after the scene at the party, especially quiet. “More than generous, really. Overly permissive, even.” He glances over at her. “No longer.” Dasha shivers. She’s nude now, on her back on their usual room’s far table. Her wrists bound above her head, shins tied to her thighs, spread open for him. She eyes the wand laying at her side. Her head snapping back when Solas comes to stand at the edge of the table, his hands resting on either side of her. He eyes her pussy, walks his gaze up her body, quirks an eyebrow when their eyes meet. Solas reaches for the wand, turns it around in his hand, looking at it with an almost clinical disinterest. Then he switches it on. Dasha gasps. One side of his mouth quirks up, then he’s stern again. “My permissiveness was a mistake.” He rolls the wand over her thigh, the vibrations loud against her skin. “Clearly.” Dasha tries to steady her breathing. She’s so wet it feels obscene, almost uncomfortable. Solas cocks his head at her. “Don’t you think?”

She gulps, watches as he raises a single eyebrow in warning. “Yes, Sir.”

He tsks. “Disobeying such a clear order,” shakes his head, “Did you even _read _the contract, Dasha?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“One wouldn’t know it.” He smooths his hand up her belly, thumb brushing against the soft skin. “Disappointing.” He rolls the wand down her thigh, positions it so close to her clit that she can feel the air pulsing around its vibrations. “Safeword.”

Dasha exhales. “Detonography.” He presses the wand so hard to her clit that she nearly jumps off the table. “Fuck! Fuck!’ She clenches her muscles, tries to bring her hips back down, but he doesn’t relent, pressing hard, rolling the wand in rhythmic circles between her legs. “Oh my god, fucking maker. Oh fuck.” She bucks against the table.

He presses harder, voice almost mocking. “You’re not allowed to cum, Dasha. I don’t understand what about this simple instruction seems to elude you.”

She nearly screams, sensation ramping up high in her body. Dasha tries to shift away from the wand, but Solas follows her, presses her hips firmly down onto the table. “Fuck! This isn’t fair!”

He switches the wand off, the silence so intense that, at first, Dasha feels like she’s been turned upside down. Her orgasm had been so close and as it retreats, she finds herself trembling. Bewildered, shaken, almost angry. Lit up with emotion. His voice is crisp, measured. “Fair? Now what on earth would make you think I am interested in being _fair_?”

Dasha heaves, rocking her hips on instinct toward him. “Maker, please. Fuck! Solas, _please. _I am so close. So so close, _please.” _She groans when she lays the wand onto the table.

He takes a step back, appraising. “What a little animal you are. So greedy.” He circles the table, hands clasped at his back, looking at her from all angles. “Cumming in front of all those people. Fucking yourself on my fingers like a little slut.” 

She bounces her hips. “God! I can’t fucking take this!” She slams her thighs together, bears down to try and create some friction.

Solas slaps them open, wrenches her knees apart with such force that she cries out, gasping. When she looks through her open legs at him, she can see a sheen of sweat on his brow, his pulse jumping under his jaw, cock straining against his slacks. “Unbelievable.” He swats her inner thigh, then takes her roughly by the hips to turn her, pulling her up to expose her ass. “That _clearly _was not the sort of punishment you’re in need of.” She listens to the clack of his dress shoes across the floor, waits with trembling breath for him to return, every inch of her skin aflame. Solas slams the cane down onto the table with such force that it shakes. Dasha exhales. She feels herself wet and hot. Afraid. Desperate for the pain of his touch. “I’ll have to take a firmer hand.”

She’s fuzzy. Her body both far away and blindingly close. A conduit, again, for pain. The feeling delicious. Her brain the blank slate she’s been chasing since their very first time. He’d canned her along her thighs, sometimes coming so close to her still throbbing pussy that she would cry out, squirm away from him. He’d lay a reassuring hand on her flank, crack the cane against her thighs again. Moments where she nearly begged him to hit her between the legs. Desperate for the pain, for that part of his touch. But he’s finished now. Her body buzzing, bright. Solas lays the cane down on the table, near where he’d neatly folded his shirt. She hears him stretch, hears the crack of his joints as he rolls his neck. She flinches when he lays a gentle handle on her back. “Breathe, Dasha.” She takes a shaky inhale, tries to memorize the rhythm of his circling thumb as she exhales. He unzips his slacks, a soft whoosh as he lets them fall to the floor. She sighs when he swirls the tip of his cock along her clit, hands resting on each hip. “If you cum again, you won’t sit for a week. I can promise you that.” She whimpers. “Now be a good girl.” He groans as he presses inside. “Be a good girl for me.”

Dasha’s trembling now, worse than before. With the effort it took her not to cum as he fucked her, with the effort it’s taking her now to keep herself upright. She’s on all floors, rope gone now, the floor hard on her knees, Solas reclined in a chair behind her. She feels the toe of his shoe tap her inner thigh. “Not a drop.” His voice is detached, almost clinical. Dasha clenches, tries to keep her hips steady. She has no idea how long he’s had her like this. Hours, days maybe. He taps her again. “Not a single drop, Dasha or I’ll make you lick it up.” She shudders. It feels almost heavy inside her now, his cum. Erotic just by its very nature. To be full of him. She clenches again, can feel some dripping down her pussy, a bright panic flashing through her as she tries to angle her hips, to clench her muscles harder. She hears it drip to the floor. He tsks. “I was nice enough to give it to you. The least you can do is not make a mess.” But it seems as though he’s done with this game. The chair creaks as he joins her on the floor. She feels his hand come between her legs, spread his cum all along her. Dasha hisses at the sensation. “My sensitive girl.” He presses a kiss to her tailbone. “My sweet, sensitive little girl.” He’s gentle as he flips her this time, her hair spread out across the floor like a fan. He’s still nude, his clothes in a neat pile on the table behind them and Dasha lets herself gaze at the hard lines of his body, lets herself remember how she’d touched them just days ago in his own bed. He strokes her belly, her thighs, slips his thumb softly across her clit. “I’m going to let you cum now.”

Dasha’s whole body unclenches. “Oh, _oh. _Thank you, Sir. Thank you so much.”

His face softens, one hand between her legs, the other caressing her bent knee. Then he leans down, takes her clit between his lips. And then he devours her. Like a starving man. Like a beast. Dasha has never screamed like this, has never felt sensations like this. Every muscle in her body tenses, her arms moving outside her control, body _shaking. _The feeling is almost terrifying. Like she might split apart, like she might combust. When she comes, it feels like that. Like she’s unraveling. Like she’s never going to be the same again. She cries out, babbling, and Solas holds her. Holds her tight, his hands soft and warm, his body solid as he pulls her against it.

She breathes in time with him. Like he told her to. A long inhale, a long exhale. They do it together, his hands brushing up then down her legs. The crying started when she came. Big, gulping sobs. Like her insides turning out, like a crack in the dam. It’s lessened now, just a few stray tears down her cheeks, but he’s still holding her, helping her breathe. They’re still on the floor, both of them naked. Her back pressed to his chest, his long legs on either side of hers. She can feel his soft cock against her skin. Intimate. He presses a gentle kiss to the back of her neck, lets his thumb caress the knobs of her knees. “I’m not sure why I’m crying.” She says on an exhale.

“It happens more than you would think. It’s a good sign.” He wraps an arm around her waist, rests his chin against her shoulder. “And I have you. It’s going to be alright.” They inhale together. Dasha lets her eyes flutter closed. “It’s been a long time since we’ve done a scene like that. And it’s been a long few weeks. A long few months,” he smooths a few strands of hair from her forehead, “for you.”

Dasha shivers. “I know.”

“You did well.”

She lets her head fall back, relishes the warmth of his bare skin against hers. “Did I?”

“Exceptionally. I’m so proud of you.”

Dasha opens her eyes, stares up at the ceiling. “Solas?” He hums. “How many subs have you had?”

He lifts his head. “In my whole career?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Many.” He kisses the crown of her head. “None like you.” She slots her fingers between his. Squeezes. He squeezes back.”

She’s standing in his kitchen when the call comes in. Leaning against his counter island as the slow rays of the morning sun come filtering into his apartment, watching him measure out the grounds for coffee. It’s just a blink. Doesn’t even ring but when she clicks her phone one, there’s a single missed call. From Zevran. Dasha frowns, “I um,” Solas glances over his shoulder at her. “Do you mind if I make a quick phone call?”

“Not at all.”

She heads out into the bright atrium of his office, phone pressed to her ear. It rings and rings, switching finally to voicemail, just robotic recitation of his number. Dasha can feel her heart start to pound. A creeping, familiar feeling settling in her chest. She calls again. A third time. The same. Solas appears in the entryway. “Everything alright?”

Dasha looks down at her phone. “Yeah.” She frowns. “Yeah, I think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little update for you guys <3

“Have you heard from Zevran?” Dasha takes a long sip of coffee, trying to sound nonchalant. It’s afternoon now, later afternoon, the sun arching across the tops of the buildings, glimmering on the sidewalk. She’s seated across the table from Josie in her skirt suit fresh from work and Varric at the pleasantly sauced tail end of a three-martini lunch with his agent.

There had been a chill in the air when Josie and Dasha met up at the station in Manhattan, heading further Midtown to meet Varric. And the chill had unearthed something inside of her. An expectant feeling. The start of school, the start of autumn. That sort of buzzy anticipation that makes you feel clean slated, brand new. And then that bright shock of grief. Somehow worse than it had been, compounded by the way she had almost forgotten. That Sera is dead. The way it hadn’t been the first thing she thought of when she opened her eyes that morning, grief elaborating into guilt, a barbed shapeshifter. Dasha squirms in her seat. “Like a text or a call? When’s the last time he updated Instagram even?”

“Zevran and I have not been on speaking terms since the spring,” Josie says, wiping her mouth with her napkin. Beside her, Varric rolls his eyes, splits a roll between his fingers and eats one half in a single bite. She remembers Zevran the last time she saw him, sitting coiled like a cat on Josie’s couch. Looking so out of place. Like a stranger even though they’ve all known each other for nearly a decade. Bruised too. She’d forgotten that. Until just now.

“I saw him.” Dasha perks up. Varric plops the other half the of the roll into his mouth. “Last week. Caught a movie with him actually.”

Dasha narrows her eyes. It’s hard to imagine, really. Zevran sitting still for long enough to watch a movie. With Varric of all people. Josie’s ignoring them both, answering an email on her phone. “What movie?”

Varric waves his hand dismissively. “Oh, you know. Just that artsy sex shit he likes. Down at some independent theater in the Bronx.”

From the corner of her eye, Dasha sees Josie look up, her thumbs stilled over her screen. Dasha tries to imagine it again. Zevran in the dark of a theater, Zevran with a bruise on his windpipe. The bruise purples, becomes half-moons under nails, gums pulled back from teeth. Dasha bristles, brushing her hair behind her ears. “And he seemed okay?”

Varric shrugs, swirling the wine in his glass. Josie is still laser focused on her phone, but Dasha can tell she is listening intently, her fingers frozen over the keys. _I can’t do this ever again, _she’d whispered to Dasha in the bathroom of Sera’s parents how, softened by the whiskey Sera’s parents had opened, eyes swollen, nose red from the winter wind by the gravesite, _Maker please don’t ever make me do this again. _Dasha spreads her fingers along her thighs. There’s a numbness that has settled over her; a quiet, almost cottony buffer. “I mean, as okay as Zevran ever seems.”

Dasha rolls out her shoulders. Varric reaches for another roll. “And you haven’t seen him since?”

“You know how he is.”

The silence that settles at the table when Varric wanders off toward the bathroom is so dense that Dasha feels briefly bowed by the force of it. She picks at the edge of her pastry, puts a piece of it on her mouth. It tastes like nothing. She takes another bite. Josie taps her nails on the table, a steady, staccato rhythm. She smiles the half smile that Dasha knows she gets when she’s about to deliver a real doozy. Dasha braces herself. “I’m sure Zevran’s fine.” She says and then Dasha watches her flinch, like she’s jinxed it, can see the gears in her head turning. She takes a sip of coffee, eyes briefly darting before returning to meet Dasha’s. “You seem…” Dasha swallows. “Good. You seem good.”

Dasha exhales. She’d said it before, of course. But soft and drowsy at the kitchen table. It’s another matter entirely for her to say it here in the daylight, her briefcase leaning against one leg of the table, the dregs of work still hanging off her. “I feel good.” And it’s true even if there’s a stone in her chest. True because the stone doesn’t make her feel like she’s sinking. Dasha clears her throat. “I wanted to let you know that,” Dasha stalls, takes a bite of food. It still tastes like nothing. She takes another. “I’m, um, looking into therapists.” Josie tucks her phone into her purse, straightens up. “And a nutritionist. In Los Angeles. Probably.” Dasha shrugs, trying to diffuse the suddenly thick energy that has settled over the table. “I’ve been asking around. People in my department, you know.”

“A nutritionist.” It’s not a question, Dasha knows her well enough to know that. She’s saying it to process it, trying to figure out how the best way to say what she’s already thinking.

Dasha throws her a line. “I haven’t been taking very good care of myself.” She picks at the crust of her pastry, pushes the plate away. “And I think it’s probably time for me to start.” To Dasha’s surprise, Josie says nothing. She reaches across the table to lay her hand across Dasha’s. She knits their fingers together, a little tent on the table. Dasha feels a jolt of warmth and one of sorrow. She tightens her grip, Josie does too.

Josie’s on the phone under the café’s awning. Full business mode again. Pacing, her square heels clacking against the concrete, dark hair curling around her neck as she gesticulates into the phone. Varric glances over at her, smiles softly to himself then fishes a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. “I thought you quit?”

“I did.” He shrugs. “Been a rough year, what can I say?” Dasha scoffs, gazes out at the street before them, watches the cars as they pass. “So?”

“So.”

Varric glances over to make sure Josie’s still on the phone. “How’s the whatever with that sex club guy?”

Dasha chuckles. “The whatever, huh?” Varric grins, gesturing vaguely. Dasha slides her hands into the pockets of her jeans, rolls out her shoulders. “We’re um…together actually. Like in a more normal way.”

“Shit.” He blows smoke out of one side of his mouth, nods toward where Josie is standing. “So when do we get to meet him?” Dasha rolls her eyes. “Ruffles know?”

Dasha glances over at her. Steam rises from a grate. Josie bats it away with her hand. “She…sort of knows.” Varric raises an eyebrow. “She knows I’m still seeing him. It’s new. The official thing. I haven’t told anyone really.” She’d told Sera, actually. Whispered it to the darkness one night as she lay in her bed.

“Well still. Surprised there isn’t a crater where your apartment used to be.”

“She’s handling it okay, honestly.” Dasha looks back over at Josie. She’s shaking her head, voice rising as she talks into the phone. “I think we’re all full of surprises.”

She and Josie are halfway to the station when her phone buzzes. Dasha slows, a chilly wind rustling some old leaves down the sidewalk, a few pieces of trash. It’s an email from the program coordinator. Long. About getting back on the university’s health insurance, about dissertator credits. “Everything okay?” Josie calls from over her shoulder.

Dasha worries the skin beside her thumbnail, ducks a little off to the side so she doesn’t block traffic on the sidewalk. “Yeah, just some logistical stuff.” The decision, the one she is tacitly making now, hadn’t really even been a decision at all. Natural, almost, to build a bridge back to LA. Natural even as Dasha has to fight the sinking feeling she gets when she thinks about Solas, about leaving New York, about a Los Angeles that doesn’t have Sera.

Josie slots herself beside her. “It’s good to be planning.”

Dasha snorts as they head down the stairs toward the station, the cars above echoing against the concrete. _Waste of time, _Sera used to say. Dasha can almost see her, reclined on her unmade bed, surrounded by a neon maze of her own possessions. _Who the fuck plans shit, like really? Better not to think shit through. Too much stress. _That certainly worked out, didn’t it. Her chest tightens. The platform is mostly empty. A man sits on the concrete, head lolled back. A group of girls giggling from their tight circle. “You really haven’t heard from him?”

Josie raises an eyebrow. A train rushes past, their hair flying around their heads, a rush of sound and then the dripping quiet of the platform, the faint chatter of the girls. “Who?”

The night that Sera died had been one long blur. There wasn’t a time when Dasha had been worried about Sera, there wasn’t a wait. She was there and then she wasn’t. Alive and then dead. But Josie had waited hours in quiet, suspended expectation. When the hospital released Sera’s phone, Dasha found a string to texts to Josie. Nonsense, babbling. Maybe not even something that Sera had meant to send, but the seizing twitching accidents of a dying woman. So Josie had waited in her own worry. Talked herself in and out of terror. Dasha’s morning call the nightmare she stayed up all night convincing herself wasn’t real. Hell. Another train rushes past. Sound, silence. “Zev.”

Josie sighs, crosses her arms over her chest. “I just…I can’t be around energy like that. Not anymore.” The unspoken things between them elaborate.

“I know, I know.” Dasha slides her phone from her pocket, finds his number.

_for real are you okay?_

A grey bubble appears. Typing. Dasha exhales. But then the bubble disappears. Doesn’t reappear. She taps her thumbs on the screen, chews the inside of her lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3 
> 
> Oh! I deactivated my twitter (turns out I don't need another platform for my doom scrolling) but I'll likely be back by the end of next month!


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: implied domestic violence

Dasha sees him cross the club. The blonde of his hair catching her eye even in the low light and she twists in her seat at the bar to try and get a better look. She’s not sure it’s him at first. She’s never seen him bent quite so over, walking with his shoulders hunched, head heavy. But then he glances up, like he can feel the weight of her gaze, and the rose tattooed under his eye is unmistakable. Her whole body tenses up and it must be obvious because she feels the warmth of Solas’ hand on the small of her back. Zevran tenses too, eyes darting in front of him. And then she can’t see his face anymore, blotted out by darkness. And a ripple runs through the club, like a shiver, all at once, and a dread she hasn’t felt this strong in months settles inside her.

And maybe she’s had a little more to drink than she should have. Because they’re not playing tonight. Solas is here to work, his night to keep the club running smoothly, and she’s here to keep him company. Another new thing. Another thing outside the bounds of their contract, another thing filed under Solas’ neatly typed appendixes. _S. Harrel and D. Lavellan are in agreement that certain aspects of their relationship cannot be anticipated within a written contract and allowances shall be made to account for these as they develop. _But it’s hard for any of that to matter. Because the club has fallen completely silent. Someone’s hit the music. The bartender sort of frozen, a glass on one hand, a shaker in the other. Solas isn’t beside her anymore, he’s crossing the club in quick, long strides. And Zevran is looking right at her. Looking at her the way he looked at her at the funeral, for a just a moment, before his face snapped shut again. Like someone waking up from an awful nightmare. That split second before the relief sets in. Dasha stands, one hand on the bar, the metal cool on her palm. It feels like a movie. Overdone There’s a crowd gathering where Zevran has fallen onto his knees. Dasha pushes her way through it. Zevran’s nose is bleeding, a thin line of blood down to his lip, pooling in the corner of his mouth. Dasha runs. 

It’s not clear at first what’s happening. Except that maybe Zevran’s in shock. Rigid like he’s locked his whole body up. Dasha’s on her shins, Zevran half laying, half sitting, her arms wrapped around him, the two of them like a Renaissance sculpture. Heavy and quiet and hardly moving at all. And it feels like a déjà vu in a way that is making it hard to breathe, in a way that has her searching for Solas in the crowd. But she can feel Zevran’s jackrabbit heart against her chest and that is so decidedly different from the memory that’s working its way up to the surface. She pulls him closer and she’s saying something to him that she can’t really hear herself. There’s a chain, like a choke chain for a dog, wrapped around her wrist, wrapped around his neck. She tries to pull it off but he bats her away, says something she can’t make out. Her ears are ringing, so loudly that she has to fight the impulse to curl in on herself, cover her ears. But she has to keep Zevran upright, has to hold him together, herself too. And then, all at once, her ears stop ringing. An almost shocking turn to quiet and then she hears talking. She’s never heard Solas raise his voice like he is now. “That’s not acceptable here. That’s not acceptable anywhere. And you should know that.” She glances over to where they’re standing, near the chaise lounges by the entry stairs.

Solas is almost a head taller than the man, but only half as broad. The leather he’s dressed in glints in the light, strips of it across thickly corded muscle, the costume hyper-done. Tom of Finland on his worst day. Leather and chains and rope. And he’s enormous, the veins on his arms bulging against his skin. And he’s menacing him, trying to at least, but Solas seems unmoved by the way the other man is puffing up his chest, keeps his hands clasped quietly at his back, stoic as ever. “Mind your own business.”

“I’m the house dom tonight. This is _absolutely _my business.” He takes a step toward him and Dasha watches as the other man tries to fight a recoil, nostrils flaring. The whole club has gone quiet. A sparse weekday night anyway, but every person there is watching Solas, eyes transfixed. Which is just a well. Dasha thinks that the last thing Zevran needs right now is eyes on him. “And even if it wasn’t, I would be interested in you explaining how an injury like that is safe, sane, or consensual.” The man looks over at Zevran, then up at Dasha. Solas follows his gaze then, in one smooth movement, takes the man’s jaw in his hand, forcing his eyes back to his own. “Don’t even look at her.”

The man yanks himself from Solas’ grasp, bristles, sniffs. “This is a fucking kink bar. Don’t come at me vanilla like this.”

“If you’re looking to throw a punch, I’m sure you there are many more appropriate venues for that. But you won’t do it here.” A punch. It makes sense even if she can’t understand how it could have happened. Zevran’s bloody nose, the bruise that’s blooming by his eye, the white of it reddened at the corner. She notices, suddenly, that one of his pupils is blown out, the other narrow, and panic spikes up inside of her.

“Solas!” He glances back, Dasha tightens her grip on Zevran. “I think he needs to go to the hospital.” Solas reaches for one of the men who has been lingering behind him, whispers something in his ear, then comes and crouches down. He presses the backs of his fingers to Dasha’s cheek, a quiet brush of affection, before he’s helping Zevran to his feet. 

In the alleyway, her mind is crystal clear. Painfully so. The night air so chilled their breath billows out in front of them. She doesn’t know who is holding on tighter, she or Zevran. Can’t remember the last time they held each other like this, the last time they hadn’t just circled each other with banter, cushioned their time together with booze. She tightens her grip. “I don’t need an ambulance.” Zevran’s shivering is so intense Dasha has started to shiver with him. Solas sloughs his sport coat off, drapes it across Zevran’s shoulders. His fingers brush against Dasha’s, their eyes meeting. His button-down looks thin. She can see goosebumps rising on the exposed skin of his wrists. “I can’t afford an ambulance.”

Solas slips his phone from his back pocket. “It’ll be alright.” He says, maybe to them both. 

Solas brings her a coffee, settles down in one of the plastic seats beside her. Dasha cradles the Styrofoam cup in her hands, takes a quick sip. Just a hint of sugar. She appreciates that, maybe more than she should. Appreciates too that they’re sitting close enough that their shoulders touch, his knee pressed just slightly to hers. Solas is a little slumped, holding his coffee cup between his spread knees. He looks weary, staring blankly at the small tv in the corner of the room. Late night news. He shifts in his seat. “What did the nurse say?”

“Concussion. They think he might have a broken wrist. Or sprained. They aren’t sure yet.” Solas hums his understanding, looking again up at the television. Dasha bounces the balls of her feet, takes another sip of coffee. “Did you know him?”

Solas turns to look at her, eyebrow raised, then nods, understanding. “He’s a newer dom in the scene. Moved to New York last year, if I remember right. Started causing trouble from the beginning.” Solas sits up, takes another sip of coffee, crosses one long leg over the other. “Pushy. We’d had a couple of complaints from single subs who came to the club. He had a longer-term sub for a while. But that sub left the scene entirely a few months ago. It’s, of course, not unheard of, but…paired with the other complaints, several of us thought we may have reason for concern. It seems we were correct.” He sighs, looking over at her. “I remember your friend. I remember that you came with him. And…” he sighs again, “I had heard that he was with this man. A couple months ago. I meant to tell you, ask you if…” He trails off, takes another sip of coffee and Dasha realizes with a dull shock that he seems…almost nervous.

“Do you think I’m angry with you?”

He rocks his head. “You would have reason to be. I should have informed you, asked if you had any information about…the dynamic.”

“I’m not mad.” Dasha says, then firmly. “I’m not.” She reaches over to take his hand. He lets her and if she wasn’t hollowed out she might have taken the time to marvel at the way it feels normal, almost everyday. Dasha glances around the hospital. It looks nothing like the one in California, even if that antiseptic smell hit her like a wall when they’d come in, new terror blooming inside of her. “He had bruises the last time I saw him. Bad ones.”

“Did he?”

“He implied it was…part of…I don’t know.” She frees her hand, tucks both of them between her thighs. “He made it seem like it was something he wanted.”

“Perhaps it was. But it doesn’t matter now.” Solas stands, stretching a little. “I need to make some calls back to the club. We’ll need to file an incident report, work out other logistical considerations.” He nods toward the dusty clock on the wall. It’s nearly one am. “And you should probably tell your roommate where you are.” 

Josie comes in like a hurricane, nearly catching her purse on the automatic siding door, the loud clack of her heels on the linoleum. Dasha isn’t surprised she’s wearing them. They’re an armor really, one she’s donned since junior year of college. Dasha stands and when Josie sees her, she makes a beeline for the chairs where they’re sitting. Curls bounce free from her bun, her face pale, eyes still puffy like she’s just pulled herself from bed. She’d sounded half-awake on the phone and then brightly awake, terrified. “I need to talk to them.” She says, her hummingbird hands gesticulating in the air, “the nurses or the finance people or whoever. Zevran’s not in any kind of position to be fielding medical bills. He’s not…” Josie pauses, looks, for a moment, almost forlorn, then pulls Dasha into a tight, almost crushing, hug. Dasha hugs her back, holding tightly onto her, breathing in the scent of her. Chanel and jasmine flower, coffee grounds. She can feel Josie trembling in her arms, just the faintest tremor. “I don’t even know what happened.” She breathes into Dasha’s neck. Josie breaks the hug, holding Dasha at arm’s length by her shoulders. “I don’t even know what happened. What happened?”

Dasha swallows. She should have expected Josie to come, but had hoped, foolishly, that she might have more time to craft a response. To make this not seem…as bizarre as it is. “Okay so.” Josie’s eyes dart, her gip on Dasha’s shoulders tightens. “Zevran was hurt…by someone at the club.”

Josie goes rigid. “At the club?” Her eyes flit over Dasha’s shoulder, her hackles rising. “Wait a minute. Is that?” She locks eyes with Dasha. “Is that the guy from the club? The…” Josie lowers her voice. “_sex _club. You’re…the one you’re…with?”

Dasha exhales. “Yes.” Josie’s eyelids flutter, her whole body just a mass of buzzing, frightened energy. “Listen, I know this isn’t the ideal time to be-“

Josie’s voice comes out almost shrill. “This is the man that you met at this sex club? The sex club where Zevran was just hurt. That sex club? The one I told you was dangerous.”

“Josie.”

“No, no. This is ridiculous. This is insane. I cannot even begin to-“

“_Josie._”

“Hello.” They both freeze. Solas emerges behind Dasha, his sport coat back over his shoulders. He extends his hand. “I’m Solas. A pleasure to finally meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3
> 
> oh! Also! I locked myself out of my old tumblr (bc of course I did) so if you sent me a message, I didn't get it. Come find me at my new one: https://junkbabelna.tumblr.com/


	31. Chapter 31

Before the tattoo, Zevran had a scar. Just a faint one, but on the smooth skin under his eye, it stood out like a silvery vein. And people asked about it, more than Dasha expected them to. And each time, Dasha would learn as she spent years going to parties big and small with him, the story about how he got it would change. Depending on the crowd usually, or how fucked up he was. A high school fight if they were around Josie’s strait-laced friends. A mugging if he’d just met someone at a bar. A lover’s spat on the boardwalk at Coney Island if they were drinking with Dasha’s art friends. Always a big story, no matter which one he picked, the whole room shifting to watch him tell it loudly with his hands. Really though, he’d told her one night – on the wrong train heading toward upper Manhattan, too drunk to give a shit – he’d gotten it as a kid, falling off his bike. He’d looked almost sheepish as he told her, embarrassed. _Kinda dumb, _he’d said, _the real story’s kinda dumb. _And it was the first time she’d really seen behind that carefully construction charm of his, the first time she’d felt, resting her head on his shoulder as the train shivered down the track, like she could be close to him. Could be really, really close. Two days later, he introduced her to Sera. Through the cigarette smoke fog of a basement punk show, pulled them both by their wrists to meet. The murk in that basement so heavy all Dasha could see was her gap-toothed smile, could feel her rings bump up against her fingers. And the rest, as they say, was history.

So maybe it shouldn’t be as hard as it, standing outside his door, to just knock. Because she knows Zevran, Zevran knows her. But things have been so hazy, these months that have stretched on for whole lifetimes, and Dasha feels like she’s only just woken up. Like from a trance, gasping back from a long dream. The white paint on the hall’s wall is peeling a little, stained nicotine yellow. Dasha shifts on her feet, the carpet crunching under her shoes. Down the hall, a couple’s fighting. A door slams a few floors below. Dasha feels frozen, standing just inches from Zevran’s door, clutching the still warm ziti Josephine insisted she take him, wrapped neatly in foil. It feels unreal. All of it. The club and the hospital and the way Josie had invited Solas back to the apartment when the nurses made clear that they were long past visiting hours, so apparently dumbstruck that she’d fallen back on her oldest high society instincts. It had been tense, she remembers, but civil. They drank coffee and Dasha tried not the count the sugar packets Josie shook absently over her cup. But Solas had been an easy well for Josie’s barely contained irritation. So it could have been worse. Could still _be _worse, Dasha reminds herself. They’d all agreed to meet again in the afternoon. One of Josie’s offer-you-can’t-refuse luncheon invitations which Solas had accepted with the kind of grace that shouldn’t have surprised her, but still did. Wild. All of it wild. Dasha raises her fist to knock.

It’s sparser than she remembers. His apartment. Somehow. But spectacularly clean. An almost unnerving lack of dust, of grime. Like he’d spent hours, days, on his hands and knees scrubbing. She did that once. After a few lines with Sera. Spent hours on the grout in her bathroom. It makes her nauseous just thinking about it. And just the idea that this is what he’s been doing keeps her glued to her spot just inside the door, still clutching the food. For his part, Zevran backed away like a shot as soon as he opened the door. He’s leaning now on his chipped kitchen counter, picking at the linoleum with his nails, a few of them painted. One of them, ominously, broken to the quick. He brushes his palm across a case of Hamms and then, as if by way of explanation, says, “they say I can’t drink on the pain meds.” He works some of the cardboard with his thumb. “So.”

Dasha steps inside, pressing the door closed behind her. “Maybe that’s an okay thing.” He scoffs. She lifts the ziti. “Josie wanted me to bring you some food.”

This time Zevran practically snorts. “Why?”

Dasha sets the casserole dish on the end of the counter. That poster’s still on the wall, she can almost feel it looming in her peripheries. “I don’t know. Because she cares about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Zevran brushes some hair from his face, revealing the way the bruise under his eye has darkened, spread. He seems to realize what he’s done with a jolt, brushing his hair back over it, rolling his shoulders. “You’ve gained some weight. Or am I not supposed to say shit like that?”

Dasha bristles, bringing her fingers to her collarbone, letting her fingertips dip into hollow just above it. He’s always fought like this, like a cornered animal, lashing out, and if she’d gotten any sleep the night before she might have said something. But she’s tired. And this feels already like shaky ground. “I didn’t just come here to bring you good.”

“Of course, you didn’t. I know how you work.”

Dasha frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You want the story. You always want the story.”

“I _came here _to make sure you’re okay.”

“Well I’m okay.” He twists a little, winces. And then, suddenly realizing that she’s seen it, waves a dismissive hand, heading over to a scuffed looking armchair in the corner of the room.

She wonders where he got it. Zevran plops down hard, winces again, and Dasha remembers the jackrabbit pounding of his heart when he’d laid in her arms. “And, yeah, maybe I did come here to ask you what the hell happened.”

“Yeah, sure, I get it.” Zevran works a frayed end of one of the chair’s arms with his nails and Dasha finds that she isn’t sure what to do with her own hands, finds herself frozen between the door and where he is. He’s not looking at her. He doesn’t really seem to be looking anywhere at all. “You know, Varric called me. Left me this long ass voicemail.” Zevran snorts. “A voicemail. You ever heard of Varric leaving a fucking voicemail? Like he gives a shit? I might be the only person on planet earth that has a voicemail from-“

“Are we like really not going to talk about this?” Her voice is louder than she expects, louder than he expects too the way his eyes widen. Dasha hadn’t noticed her fingers curl into fists, takes a long breath and releases them.

Zevran settles back in his seat, rolls his shoulders again like he’s sloughing her off. “Which part?”

“All of it?”

Zev shrugs. “He hit me. Nothing else to say.”

“Nothing else to say. _Really._”

Zevran picks a little harder at the fraying fabric of the chair. “I got in over my head. It happens in the scene. Like all the fucking time."

“I don’t know if that’s true.”

Zevran raises both eyebrows. “Oh yeah? So you’re an expert now, huh?” Dasha bristles. “I bet that’s what Solas told you, right?”

She goes rigid. “Can we not talk about him, please?”

“Why not?”

“Because-“

“So you’re like _with him _with him now, huh?” Zevran’s staring at the fraying fabric now, jaw tight. “Just like you thought you’d be. Just like you wanted.” He sniffles. In the faint light from his single, narrow window, his bruise spreads down the side of his cheek, seems to curl around his neck. “That’s good. That’s good. Things always work out for you. Get fucked up, get shitty, and then work out.”

And that’s when she sees it – like she’d seen it that night on the subway all those years ago- that crack in his façade. He looks close to tears, like the threads that are holding him barely together have started to fray like the end of the chair. She feels it like a hollow echo inside of herself. Fainter now than it would have been even a month ago, but she knows it like a friend. Dasha settles at the base of the chair, legs crossed, close enough that Zevran’s bare toes brush against her calves. “Things can work out for you too, you know.”

The tendons in Zev’s neck are practically bulging, but his face doesn’t crack. “Nah.”

“Is that why you picked him? This guy? Solas said he has a reputation. Real piece of work.”

“Pfft. Yeah, alright.”

Dasha runs her fingers through the stiff carpet, looks up to try and catch his eye. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You weren’t exactly around.” He snaps.

“I know, I’m sorry.” That seems to throw him off, a sort of stunned look flitting briefly across his face. He crosses and uncrosses his arms. Looks down almost incredulous at her. “I’m here now.”

His jaw trembles. She watches his grip tighten on the arms of the chair. The silence between them stretches long and Dasha is considering getting up, considers leaving him alone with his thoughts when he says, his voice distant. “I bet you wish it was me instead of her.” Dasha blinks at him. “I bet sometimes you wish that, huh? That you got some call back in California about them finding _my _body in a bathroom. You ever fantasize about that? Biking over to Sera’s place to tell her the news.”

“No, not even once.” He nods, looking off center, arms tight around his chest. “Not even once.” She says, this time emphasizing each word. “I don’t want to bury you too.”

“It’s not up to you.”

“I know that, Zevran. I _know _that.” Dasha splays her fingers across her bent knees, takes a long, deep breath. She remembers sitting like this, just like this, in Sera’s studio. She remembers saying nothing. “You need help.”

“I know.”

She glances up at him. He’s looking past her, hands folded in his lap now, feet on the cushion. “Will you get it?”

He looks down at her. “Will you?”

“I’m gonna try.”

“Not all of us are gonna make it, you know. That’s now how shit works.”

“I hope you will. I hope I will.” Dasha reaches out to take his hand. He lets her, squeezes. Tight. Almost too tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading <3


	32. Chapter 32

“He’ll be banned.” Solas sits with his hands folded on the far side of the kitchen table, the afternoon light at his back. Josie sets a coffee down in front of him, dressed still in the clothes she came to the hospital in. She takes a step back, but doesn’t sit down, just crosses her arms over her chest and lets herself loom. If Solas notices the intimidation, Dasha can’t tell. Instead he just nods and takes a sip of coffee. “Wonderful,” he says, in the voice she is sure he uses with his students. Gentle, measured, firm. “Thank you.”

Dasha takes a sip of her own coffee, settling back in her chair. She feels almost glued to it. Heavy. Though the hot shower she stepped out of just a few minutes ago has her feeling significantly less grimy that she felt when she left Zevran’s place. It’s been a long 36 hours. The longest since Sera probably. When she’d sat in the middle of Sera’s cluttered studio, alternating between her phone and Sera’s, trying to call everyone she’d ever known, hoping that with each call she’d figure out a way to say it, she’d figure out a way to even begin to process it.

But this isn’t that. This isn’t even in the same ballpark as that. Not yet. So it’s been a long 36 hours but Dasha doesn’t feel gutted anymore, doesn’t feel totally adrift. Lets herself settle into the chair even deeper, lets herself soak up the early afternoon sun streaming through the windows.

Solas had gone to the club after the hospital, dropped briefly by campus, and then, at Josie’s request, come back to the apartment. Dasha warned him via text that it might amount to an interrogation, but Solas had arrived so composed and friendly that it had once again disarmed Josie.

But she’s recovering quickly. “And what does that mean,” she asks, still standing, her neatly manicured nails digging into the cashmere sleeves of her sweater, “_banned_.”

“He won’t be allowed in our club. Or at any of our outside meetings.” He takes another sip of coffee. Dasha can’t take her eyes off him. Off his nimble fingers, the hard line of his jaw. He must have stopped off at home between the club and Columbia and here. The sweater he’s dressed in now makes him look softer, much less imposing than he’d been in the suit. A leather watch around one wrist. It ages him a little. Dasha likes that. Dasha likes that a lot.

There’s something surreal about him being here with Josie. Like she’s just stepped out of a long dream, taken a bit of it with her. Like she’d curled up beside Sera in that bathroom and went to sleep. Dasha’s been waking up in inches, the night before in the club a final knock back solidly to earth. And she finds herself almost startled to be back in New York, back in this apartment. Startled by how much smaller she is. Startled by him. And yet. Dasha reaches for him, then retracts her hand. Solas glances over at her, something easy passing quietly between them before he turns again to Josie. No, not a dream. Something like it, maybe, but every step she’s taken to get here she can retrace. Solas sets his coffee cup down on the table, folds his hands again in front of him. Straight-backed and composed. It’s funny that Dasha thought it wouldn’t go like this. Funny that she hadn’t once considered all the ways Josie and Solas might mirror one another. “We’ll also send word to other clubs in the city. The Scene is relatively shallow in New York. It will be hard for him to find a place in it after this.” Solas sighs. “Of course, none of that prevents him from establishing himself in an online community, but we do our best to mitigate the damage where we can.” 

“Does this happen a lot?” Josie asks, tone clipped. “_In the scene._”

“It’s not unheard of, unfortunately. Though not as common as the media would have you believe. This dynamic allows for…” Solas circles his fingers in the air, thinking. Dasha can tell he’s trying to choose his words carefully, tries to parse why that makes her feel almost like a livewire, filled with energy, longing, everything. “Misconceptions abound.” He decides on. “Abusers can use the language of BDSM to find victims. It rarely lasts long. We have rules in place for a reason. We’re a tight-knit community for a reason. Abusers are almost always eventually found out. But…” He sighs. “That does not mean others are not hurt in the meantime.”

“Hmm.” Josie taps her palm against the top of her chair, mouth a tight line. “Why don’t I go make us some more coffee.” She turns quickly on her heel, shoes clacking against the hardwood as she disappears around the corner.

Solas exhales, glancing out the window. The panes are a little fogged, the apartment just a touch cold. “She likes you.”

Solas glances over, one eyebrow raised. “Is that so?”

“Definitely. She would have kicked you out already if she didn’t.”

Solas chuckles, shaking his head. “Well, I’m glad. I know…” He hesitates again. She’s not used to this still. This scrubbed down version of him, composed still, but human in all the little ways he’d kept from her. “I know that not everyone understands what we do. I know that, especially in heterosexual arrangements, the gender dynamics can be…troubling to outsiders.” He looks at her intensely. “I know how important your friends are to you.” 

“She likes you, Solas. She’s taking this really well, honestly.”

He reaches over, hesitates, then takes hold of her hand. It’s warm, his grip tight. Dasha leans into it. She fights the impulse to crawl into his lap, curl up against his chest. His thumb brushes softly along her wrist, soothing back and forth. “How is your friend?”

She doesn’t want to talk about Zevran, doesn’t want to talk about the way her dread is tinged in terror in tinged too in that same helpless feeling she’d felt that morning in Sera’s studio, joking about rehab. “I’m not sure.”

He squeezes her hand. “I’ll make sure he’s looked after if he returns to the club. Or any other club. I’ll take care of things.”

The sky is a perfect slate grey. Just a single sheet of color. The sun that hung brightly all afternoon hidden now. It’s unseasonably cold and as Dasha pulls one of Josie’s borrowed coats tighter around herself, she wonders if it might start to snow. “It occurs to me,” Solas says, hands in the pockets of his slacks, “that we haven’t discussed your work.”

Dasha blinks at him. They’re lingering at the edge of the stoop, standing close enough to share body heat. “My work?”

Solas gazes out at the street, the passing cars. “Your hours of availability changed from our last contract.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She reaches up to scratch at her neck. He turns to look at her, eyebrow raised again. She can feel the shift in the dynamic without even a word and it feels almost exposing out here on the street, easily erotic even as the day has worn down on her. “I’m at the museum now. MoMa.”

“Ah, I see. I imagined it was something in your field.”

“Just rote work.”

She watches a tendon in his neck tighten before it releases again, disappears under his skin. And it reminds her of all the way she still doesn’t know him, of all the way she does. Of how this conversation is heading down a path she has been trying so hard for weeks to avoid, to not think about. “And when does that end?”

Dasha swallows. “A few weeks before Christmas.”

“Ah.” But it seems he wants to avoid it too, says nothing more and turns to run his thumb across her cheek. Then he leans down to kiss her. She rises to her toes, cups his jaw. The kiss feels endless. Long and soft and when they break apart her cheeks are numb from the cold, fingers stiff. Solas presses a kiss to her hairline, runs the backs of his fingers along her neck. “Be ready to come to the club this week. I’ll call you when things have settled.” He pauses, running his thumb along her lower lip. “Get some sleep, Dasha. Get something to eat.”

“Yes, Sir.” His smile is light. He kisses her again.

“Well he’s handsome. I’ll give you that.” Josie is waiting at the table when Dasha returns, stirring her cup absently with a delicate silver spoon. She’s still ramrod straight, like she hasn’t yet been able to let go of the energy she’d been projecting since the night before.

“You like him,” Dasha says, settling into the chair beside her. It isn’t a question.

“He isn’t what I expected.” She sighs. “You could have told me he was a college professor.”

Dasha cocks her head. “Would that have made a difference?”

“Enormously. Which I shouldn’t admit.” They both laugh, breathy. The apartments a little dark now with the overcast sky outside. It seems quieter, almost suspended. “How was Zevran?”

“Obstinate.”

Josie scoffs. “Yes, of course. I suppose we should be glad. That means he’s still himself.” She releases the spoon, lets it clink against the side of the cup. “Well I hope he knows that he can always call me for help. That he can always come here.”

Dasha frowns. The memory of him slumped in that chair is still clinging to her, feels so close she’s almost sure she could reach and find Zevran’s knee instead of Josie’s. “I think he may need to hear that.” They lock eyes. “From you.”

Josie nods stiffly. “Right. Of course.” She grimaces. “Does he still live in that awful apartment?”

“Yep.”

She shudders. “That’s fine. I can invite him over here.” Dasha settles heavily, her chin on her hand, gazing out the window at nothing. “Are you goin into the museum today?”

“I’m supposed to.” Dasha reaches into her pocket to check her phone. “In a few hours.”

“Dasha.” Her voice is soft, almost too gentle and Dasha braces herself. It’s all so familiar. “You know I have to ask.” Dasha slides her gaze toward Josie. “You said you’re going back to your program.”

“Yes.”

“At the start of spring semester.”

“Yes.”

The silence between them thickens; Dasha can feel her heart starting to jump. “What are you going to do? About him?”

Dasha exhales, closing her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Education is important.”

Dasha scoffs. “Yeah.”

Josie sighs, her whole body curling inward. She runs her fingers through her hair, scattering the clean lines of her updo. “You know my parents are having a party this weekend. Big catered event.”

Dasha turns, opens her eyes. “Okay?”

“Come. They’d love to see you.” Josie purses her lips. “Bring him.”

Dasha looks at her practically cross-eyed. “Are you serious?”

“Try it on.”

“Try what on?”

“The two of you together. In public. See how it feels. See if it’s right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end here and while I'm excited to bring the finished story to you, it'll be sad to no longer be in the midst of writing this. I want to thank all of you from the absolute bottom of my heart for your comments and your kudos and just for reading. Your support has been so incredible <3 
> 
> That said: I have a few smutty one-shots planned in this universe and am still playing with the idea of a more canon story in this ship, so I'm not going anywhere. Thanks for sticking around :)


	33. Chapter 33

Solas owns a car. A nice car. Not flashy but newer. Black. An almost spotless exterior that glints in the warm afternoon light. The light is always a little different out in the Hamptons, like all the steel and concrete back in the City steals some of its warmth. It doesn’t bake like it does back home in the desert, just settles, simmers. It’s simmering around him now. Around his car. It fleshes him out even more in her mind. This car. A man in New York City who owns a car. Who drove it more than hour out here to a house he’s never been to before, with people he doesn’t know. For her. Dasha smooths the hem of her sundress. A little too thin for the autumn chill in the air. Full circle almost. Underdressed. Out of her depth. Maybe not as out of her depth as she was before though. Maybe not even close.

She steps out of Josie’s backseat. There’s a chill in the air but the sun in warm on her skin. And Solas looks beautiful. A long line of a man. Dressed in a dark, well-tailored suit, the top three buttons of his shirt undone to reveal his collarbone. Devastating really, the way he looks.

He’s parked way across from where Josie is, far enough that he hasn’t seen her yet. Dasha watches him stand back to take the house in, hands in the pocket of his slacks. A few yellowed leaves skitter across the Montilyet’s cobblestone drive. Varric bumps her hip, slots a tray of Josie’s rising focaccia into her hands. Josie’s long gone. Scurried up to the house as soon as she killed the engine of her car. Dasha glances down at him, then back at Solas, and she can feel Varric’s eyebrow raise even without looking. “Well, shit.” She looks down at him again. “Is that the guy? Like _the guy_?”

Solas has noticed her now, is making his way across the drive to Josie’s car, inclining his head in quiet greeting to the people he passes. “Yep.”

Varric chuckles. “Damn. Well alright then.”

Josie’s parents seem delighted by him. Which is predictable, now that she’s thinking about it. All of the vague fears she’d sorted through the night before, tossing and turning on her still bare mattress, seem foolish now. Because why wouldn’t they like him? A handsome professor. And of classics, no less. A discipline that Josie’s father seems to hold in sudden high regard. Bloviating about the latest addition to his ever-growing collection of art, Solas listening with a polite smile and the occasional nod. Because of course he’d be polite, of course he’d be patient. Because the man he is with her, in the private darkness of the club, of his apartment, is not so different from the man he is here. Softened sure, but no less commanding. Just quieter here. So subtle that Josie’s father hasn’t noticed even as Solas has taken clear command of the room. Nearly every eye on him. Not needing to speak a word. Dasha finds herself shifting closer, glancing around. Varric’s long gone, probably out smoking at the back of the house, already overs the crowd. Josie flitting around the room, busying herself with conversation. Everything a maze of light and color and movement. Except Solas. Solid as a rock. Still and composed. Dasha looks up at his face, at the handsome line of his nose, his jaw. She loves him. Which she knows, has known, but there’s something about this room, all these people, that make her know for sure. _Fuck_, she loves him. The room seems almost to tilt before righting itself again. Dasha exhales. Solas brushes his arm against her arm, just the faintest of touches.

Across the kitchen island, Josie’s mother leans over to whisper something giddy in another woman’s ear. Dasha wonders how they look together, she and Solas, wonders for maybe the first time if they fit. How they look as a couple. A couple. Maker. Well-matched, she assumes, by the way Josie’s mother had fawned over them both. She wonders if as much older than her as he is, wonders if maybe that is what Josie’s mother was whispering about. Dasha fights the urge to grab hold of his arm. Then doesn’t. Because why should she. Threads her arm through his and lets herself lean a little in when he responds by laying his hand on hers. A casual gesture. And maybe that’s why it feels so momentous. Because it’s so normal. So easy. Or well, maybe easy isn’t right. Dasha’s clutching the glass of wine Josie’s mom handed her when she walked in so hard her fingers have started to ache. She’s feeling the weight of every version of herself that has ever stood in his kitchen barreling down on her. All those younger versions, those brighter versions, those terrified versions. There are parts of her that are intact, parts still missing, parts gone forever. It’s heady. To be here. With him. Because it feels so right. To have brought him here. She’s never brought a man here before. Her chest tightens. “So how did the two of you meet?” Dasha stiffens, careening back to herself. Josie’s mother has circled the kitchen island, standing now next to her husband. It’s an innocent question and one she should have expected, but Dasha’s brain is totally, precariously blank.

Solas’, it seems, is not. He chuckles, removing his hand from hers to take a sip of his wine. “We met during a talk. At Columbia this spring.” He glances over at Dasha, a faint slyness on his smile. “The talk was on ancient Roman courtship, actually. Fascinating stuff. The Romans were so brutal.” Dasha nearly sputters.

But no one else seems to notice. Josie’s mother settles back, smiling. “I suppose that’s always how it is with academics.” And that sends a quick spike of fear through Dasha’s whole body. Of urgency. Because she’s not an academic if she’s not in California and she’s not with him if she is. They haven’t talked about this. Not really. Dasha wouldn’t even know how to begin, wouldn’t even know what to say. The room is tilting again. It’s all too much. Everything. Too fucking much. She exhales when Solas presses his hand to the small of her back, just gently. He’s still talking with Josie’s parents, still chuckling softly, his voice deep and low. But his hand just rests against her, thumb brushing up and down through the thin fabric of her dress. Dasha sets her glass a little too hard down on the counter, touches Solas’ arm just lightly. “I’m just gonna step out for a moment.” He looks pointedly at her; she purses her lips. “I just need some air.”

She pauses outside the door to the office. Doesn’t realize she’s done it until she’s reaching out to touch the glass paned door, retracting her fingers before they can touch. It’s not lost on her, this loop. Dasha first texted Solas in that room, the acidic kick of her own vomit still stuck at the base of her throat. Dasha closes her eyes and breathes. So slow and deep she can feel it fill her lungs, expand her chest. She opens her eyes. She heads for the door.

Her thoughts expand when she reaches the far end of the circle drive where the Montilyet’s neatly groomed hedges bend toward the road. It’s always been easier to think under the sky. Since she was a child under the blanched blue of the desert. No wonder she’s felt so small in the City. No room to think.

Here, with all this space, her thoughts loop and twist. Sera cross-legged in front of blank canvas, working her teeth against her thumbnail, brush poised just barely from its surface. Annette clicking her pen, face framed by piles of books on her desk. Josie humming in the kitchen; Varric laughing with his teeth around a cigarette. Bull too big for his stool, hulking shoulders filling up the whole of his apartment, fan humming in the window, blotting out the sound of the street. She should call him. Zevran too. Zevran pressing his thumb to her tongue on the subway, watching her roll the molly along her teeth before she swallows it. She hasn’t called her mom either. In ages. The soft smoke of her voice, the wet smell of cigarettes on the collar her shearling coat. Memories so old they feel almost primordial. And Solas, of course. Solas in the muted light of the club, of the cab. Solas in the full resplendent sun of his apartment, at the bottom of her stoop. 

The sunset doesn’t look like the Hamptons tonight. Looks like the desert spread out before her, the muted purples and pinks of the scrub. Looks like fields of California poppies. Looks like one of Sera’s last paintings, thick blots of color. And Dasha feels like she is settled in the root of every life she has ever lived or could live. And what should feel overwhelming, enormous, feels like she could cradle it in the palm of her hand. Dasha takes a long, deep breath and lets herself feel alive. A sliver of guilt rises up inside of her. She lets if nestle beside grief, lets them both lay softly under her ribs. Dasha exhales, her breath faint in front of her. She turns to look at the house, at the mirrored sky beyond it, cut through by the rising moon. She can almost see the crossroad where she stands, painted there in the sky. Her heart thrums.

Dasha finds him on the back veranda. On his own. A glass of wine in his hand. Gazing out at the setting sun. He inclines his head just slightly when Dasha comes up beside him. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah.” Dasha curls her fingers over the railing. The neatly manicured lawn beyond mostly empty, the chill settling solidly in the air, driving most people inside. Distant conversation and laughter drift over them from the house’s open windows at their back. “Yeah, I’m alright”

“I imagine they can be rather overwhelming.” Dasha scoffs. Solas looks again out at the lawn. “It’s beautiful here.” He glances over at her. An appraising look, one more at home in the club that here, his gaze dragging up her body. But it softens when he reaches her face. “Quite nearly as beautiful as you.” 

She doesn’t know if it’s the words or the way he’s said them but her body feels suddenly uncontained and she can’t stop herself, not with that desperate, terrified feeling inside her again. “I’m going back to LA.” The words hang. He has no reaction, stands very still. Those pale eyes of his looking nearly through her. “In the spring. To finish up my coursework.”

He nods, face still unreadable. “I had assumed as much.” He takes a long breath, sets his glass of wine on the railing. “I’m glad you’ll be returning to your program. You’re a highly skilled academic. You belong in the Academy. Without a doubt.”

It doesn’t feel like a compliment, but like a dismissal. But it doesn’t hurt like it would have before, because she can see him now. Better than she could before. His face is placid, but she can see by the set of his jaw that he’s feeling something. Something strong, maybe something that frightens him. “What about us?”

“I imagine you’ll be leaving in the late winter. Several months from now.” He takes a deep breath, staring again out at the soft waves. “I suppose we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“That’s it?”

He turns to her. “What else is there to do?”

“You don’t have a plan?”

He chuckles. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me. But no, Dasha, I do not.”

“I love you.” It feels like a release. To say it. To put it into the world. The air quickens around her. She watches every muscle in his body tense, then release, watches one side of his mouth quirk up. She can’t contain herself. Her hands a flurry of movement as she speaks, words pouring desperately out of her mouth. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to leave you.”

He’s gentle. His fingers just barely against her cheek. She falls quiet at the touch, still. “You have to walk toward your future, Dasha. You have to follow your path.”

“And what about you?”

“I have to follow mine.”

She pulls away from him, turning back toward the lawn. She can’t look at him, not when he’s saying things like this. “I don’t find that comforting.”

“Life is seldom comforting.” The sounds from the house are distant now, the lapping of the waves against the shore much louder. And his voice is quiet when he says.“I love you too.” She looks over at him. His eyes trained to the horizon. When he looks again over at her, Dasha can see that his eyes are wracked with pain, She’s never seen them like that, so open, so blatant. He brushes hair from her face, thumb soft on her skin. “I love you with everything I have. I love you enough to let you go.” 

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to.”

“And yet you may have to.” He looks out toward the ocean, the moon glittering on the waves. He nods, not looking at her. Just nods. A quiet, almost nothing gesture. His hand brushes against hers, both of them holding onto the railing, the sky darkening around them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you come for me, I did promise a happy ending ;) 
> 
> One chapter to go. Absolutely wild. Thank you so so so so so SO much for all the support you've given me over the past year or so. As always, thank you for reading <3.


	34. Chapter 34

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Dasha passes the joint back, coughing a little on the exhale. The roof slopes a little down and Dasha has to dig her bare heels into the cracked terra cotta to keep herself from slipping.

Sera doesn’t seem to even notice the sloping of the roof, perched on her haunches beside Dasha like a condor. She’s dressed in only a pair of white granny panties she got in a pack Costco and a paint stained t-shirt so many sizes too big it’s slipping off both shoulders, but she still manages to look somehow elegant when she takes the joint between her teeth. The sun’s setting now in earnest, casting long, ochre colored shadows across the street, the palms swaying gently in the warm breeze. It looks nothing like New York, even the energy in the air feels different. Sera takes another hit of the joint and passes it back, the breeze rustling her jagged bangs when she turns. “What do I think what will be like?”

Dasha inhales, the joint hot against her fingertips, paper quietly crackling. She hauled the last of her moving boxes into her little studio an hour ago and the jitters she’d felt on the plane this morning haven’t yet subsided. Maybe Sera can feel it, maybe that’s why she rolled the joint. “Our lives. Here.”

Sera snorts. “You know I don’t think about shit like that, come on.”

Dasha sits a little more upright. A car drives slowly past on the street below, its windows open, music blaring. The sky is so big and wide in their neighborhood, not a building in sight tall enough to touch the horizon, not up here on the roof anyway. “No, I mean it. We’re all the way across the country. Away from all our friends.”

“Not each other.”

Dasha sighs, passing the joint back. “You know what I mean. It’s going to be so different.” Dasha takes a deep breath, pulls her knees up to her chest. The sun is spreading across the horizon now, like it’s been cracked open, stars blinking on in the pale blue darkness overhead. “What will our lives be like? In a year? In two years? Who will we be?”

“You worry too much.” Sera lays back onto the shingles, exhaling smoke. Dasha looks over at her, at the way the set sun has cast her whole body in light. And Dasha can’t help but smile, looking back out at the swaying palms. “It’ll be what it’s supposed to be.” 

The pain is brief, but it echoes. LAX has a subtle sulfur smell to it, just faint, but it hits her so squarely in the chest when she steps off the plane into the terminal that Dasha stops in her tracks, moves only when another exiting passenger bumps her to get past. She slips her backpack over one shoulder and ducks toward the terminal’s neatly rowed seats. The smell dissipates, that sharp stab of grief too. The sunlight casts a grid over the geometric carpet, warms the back of Dasha’s neck where it hits it. She takes a deep breath, eyes closed, and tries to get out from under the crippling feeling of deep nostalgia that is threatening now to overtake her. Because she’s only landed at this airport without Sera once before. After her funeral, when Dasha came back shellshocked and shivering, stomach cramped up from the food she hadn’t given it. Feeling like her entire life had just shriveled up, died on the vine. Dasha opens her eyes. Most of the passengers have gotten off the plane, heading down toward the moving walkway to baggage claim, a few of the flight attendants are chatting with one of the women behind the gate desk. Dasha shucks off her coat, draping it over the back of one of the chairs and takes another deep breath, running her fingers through her hair.

New York bade her goodbye with almost three feet of snow. Dumping for days as she stood at Josie’s window and fretted. About the apartment, about the packing, about plane cancellations, and ice on the wings. Not that she needed to. Josie had it all handled. The apartment and the movers and the plane ticket._, _Just like she did before. For her and Sera both. _Shame I can’t bargain with the weather, _Josie said the night before, the two of them plopped on her couch, eating Thai food from the takeout place Sera always loved so much, watching big flakes of snow drift past the living room windows. Josie held her so long and hard at the airport. So tightly that Dasha started to cry, just softly, clinging to the silk of Josie’s shirt. _I’ll be out this summer, _Josie assured her, hands tightly gripping Dasha’s arms, her eyes wide, almost fearful. _We’ll talk. I’ll call. It’s fine. Sure. It’s fine. Yes. _

But it does feel fine. In its way. A fine that is tinged with grief and fear and sweet memories and longing. But one that feels easy to sink into. Dasha slips her phone from her purse, taps a quick text to Josie to let her know that she landed safely, then to Varric. She has a therapy appointment in her calendar app for next week, back to back with a nutritionist. It doesn’t really loom like it did back in New York though, like the California sunshine has stripped it of some of its terror. She slides it away, opens her contacts out of habit. Sera is still the first one in her favorites. The picture from that day out in the sunflowers. A big, toothy grin. Dasha taps it with her thumb, once, twice, then she straightens, phone in her hand, and just listens. To the hum of passing chatter and the bell tone of the announcements over the intercom. “I’m home,” she says quietly and wonders if Sera can hear it wherever she is, “I’m back.” The sun brightens in the terminal; a few people stop near the terminal to look briefly out the window.

Dasha turns to the look at the gate. It’s mostly empty, one of the pilots pulling his suitcase down the jet bridge. She frowns, reaching again for her phone, when he appears behind the pilot, bag slung over his shoulder, making long strides down the hall. Solas. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater, mirrored sunglasses atop his shaven head. Dasha turns to look at him fully and smiles, one eyebrow raised. “There you are. I was worried I’d lost you.”

Solas chuckles. “Struck up a conversation with the pilot.” He puts his hand on the small of her back, leans down to kiss the crown of her head. “Shall we?” 

The taxi loop smells like pinyon and gasoline. A strange mix that fills Dasha again with that heavy feeling. But it’s a beautiful day. Mid-seventies. Not a cloud in the sky. It’s hard to let the feeling linger. Solas stands with a groan, slipping the way he retrieved from his suitcase around his wrist. He’d shucked his sweater at baggage claim, dressed now in only a simple white undershirt. Dasha reaches for him, fingers brushing the soft fabric. Solas smiles, checking the time on hiswatch, then his phone, one hand settling over hers, pressing her palm to his ribs. “I need to have my syllabus to the chair by next weekend, but I’d like to make an appearance at the department before that. Maybe tomorrow.”

“The classics building isn’t far from mine. I need to pop in and see Annette. I can show you where it is.”

Solas nods, squeezing her hand, looking out at the taxis drifting along the loop. The visiting professorship is temporary. So temporary that the department has put him up in the house of another professor away on a year-long research trip to Cairo. Another ticking clock, but it feels hard, standing out in the sunshine, to worry about it. Just another bridge they’ll come to. “I’d like you to come over tonight once out get a little settled. We can take a look at the club together.” Ah, yes, the club Solas spent weeks trying to get a handle on, trying to figure out whether or not the scene would suit him, them. It’s down in the art’s district, started by a friend of a friend of Solas’ back in New York. “No scenes tonight, though,” he says with a yawn.

She laughs. “Old man.” He smirks, tapping her cheek in quiet warning. “Is it alright if I’m a little later, though? I was planning to stop by Honor Fraser actually. Some of Sera’s work is still up.”

He glances back at her, eyes softening. “Of course.” She swallows, tries to smile. He brushes a strand of hair from her face, cupping her cheek with his palm.

Dasha’s phone buzzes. She rummages in her purse for it, slides it open when she sees it’s from Zevran.

_you die in a plane crash?_

One side of her mouth quirks up, Solas now busying himself with their luggage.

_Not today. _

His response is immediate.

_bummer _

Her smile widens. His grey bubble jumps for a long time and Dasha finds that feeling slipping back in. She’d seen him a few times before she left. He’d been tired, drawn, but seemed clear-headed. Not talkative really but…present. Solas told her he’d come back to the club, to a munch in the Garment District. That he’d seemed okay. Seemed better. Her phone buzzes against her palm.

_tell Sera hi from me when you go to the studio _

_call you later _

Her chest tightens. She smiles. A notification from Josie pops up. Just a text.

_Be good. Stay safe. I love you. _

Dasha sighs, closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she finds them drifting up toward the palms at the edge of the loop. Green against bright blue. Solas steps down toward the curb to hail a taxi, the long lines of his body almost obscured by the sun. She is not the same as she was up on that roof her first day in California, but there is a part of her that is still there, toes gripping terracotta shingles. A part still in the damp subway that first night back out with Zevran, molly rattling around in her body like a loose coin. A part standing shivering beside a frozen grave in New Jersey. A part in the club, hands tucked between her knees, the heat of his breath on the nape of her neck. A part that is still sitting with Josie on the couch, watching the snow fall, that radiant, expectant feeling of a life stretching out simmering between them both. Of newness and opportunity and longing and grief.

There is a place in the California sunshine where Sera is still alive. There is a place in the California sunshine where Dasha lives now. With a hole in her heart that is in full bloom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.   
Thank you so much for your support and your critique and your excitement. It’s made writing this so much more meaningful and fun. I plan to revisit these two from time to time. I hope you'll stick with me :). 
> 
> And, as always, thank you for reading <3


End file.
